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Here's a note to describe, for those interested, what is going on in the "refutation" of E8 theory by Jacques Distler and Skip Garibaldi.

In a paper I posted to the arxiv in 2007, I proposed that the algebraic elements representing all know forces in physics (gravity, the strong force, the weak force, and electromagnetism) and the algebraic elements representing one generation of fermions (electrons, neutrinos, and up and down quarks) can be identified with algebraic elements of the E8 Lie algebra. For me, this was a very exciting discovery. In this sense "everything" is in E8 -- a remarkable unification of all forces and at least one generation of fermions. Now, in physics we know there are also second and third generation copies of the fermions, which relate to the forces in the same way as the first generation fermions. Algebraically, as far as we know, these particles are identical to their first generation partners. Other than having larger masses, a muon and tau interact just like an electron. Back in 2007, I suggested how these second and third generation particles might be related to other algebraic elements in E8 by triality, but stated that this relation could not work in the conventional way. Specifically, in my paper it says "When considered as independent fields with E8 quantum numbers, irrespective of this triality relationship, the second and third generation of fields do not have correct charges and spins."

What Garibaldi and Distler did was to prove that fitting the second and third generation fermions in E8 can't work in the conventional way. To this I say: yes, and that's what I said in my paper. They also prove that when one puts the first generation fermions in E8, and examines some of the other elements of E8 in a conventional way, some are mirror fermions, matched to the first generation but with opposite charges -- fermions and their mirrors making a "non-chiral" set. Except, they don't say it quite that way. What they say is "it is impossible to obtain even the 1-generation Standard Model." I consider that to be an extremely misleading statement. Their justification for saying it, and for their title, "There is no 'Theory of Everything' inside E8," is to state (buried in a footnote) that mirror fermions make a theory unviable. Specifically, they claim "Whatever intricacies a quantum field theory may possess at high energies, if it is non-chiral, there is no known mechanism by which it could reduce to a chiral theory at low energies." But that statement, crucial to their argument, is just not true. There are many theoretical models which include mirror fermions, and people have worked on ways to deal with them, giving the mirror fermions large masses. Since there is currently no good explanation for why the three generations of fermions exist, or why they have the masses they do, it is incorrect of Distler and Garibaldi to claim that mirror fermions with large masses cannot exist.

Distler and Garibaldi are trumpeting that they have proved E8 unification can't work, and they're doing their best to discredit the theory. To this challenge, I have only one question in response: Do the fields of gravitational and standard model forces acting on a generation of fermions match a subset of algebraic elements of E8, or do they not?

Regardless of this theorist squabbling, the real excitement in particle physics right now is that the LHC is beginning high energy collisions! Personally, I'm hoping they're going to see some particles consistent with unification, such as a Z', multiple Higgs, or -- who knows -- even some mirror fermions. We live in interesting times.

My own models have evolved such that the 240 roots of E8 are all fermions or 'scalar fermions'/'ghosts'/'tachyons' (huge similarities with your model). The 8 basis vectors of E8 are all bosons (nearly identical to your model) that represent 8 dimensions of spacetime and/or hyperspace. But I have some bosons and dimensions that don't fit in a standard E8 (in fact, this may be the root of your triality problem - yes, E8 has a triality, but we might need a second triality). E8 also has a 'pentality' symmetry, and the recent quasiparticle results by Coldea et al may be confirmation of the relevance of E8 and pentality symmetries (the pentality symmetry leads to the relevance of the Golden Ratio).

I think that the initial fermion is an 8-D E8, the final fermion is a different 8-D E8, and boson (that makes up the third leg of a 3-legged Feynman fermion-boson-fermion interaction vertex) is 11 or 12 dimensional. Thus, the 'TOE' is 27/28 dimensional ((11 or 12) plus 8 plus 8). Lawrence Crowell and I are sharing ideas towards this goal.

I might agree with Distler that your model wasn't perfect, but I think it is relevant, and possibly on the correct path.

G2 is important to both QCD and Generations. I think the QCD G2 is embedded in E8, and the Generational G2 is external to E8. This is an important flaw in Lisi's E8 TOE, and gets us up to 10 dimensions without other concerns (such as Real and Imaginary Time).

In case you didn't know, I wanted to inform you of the unfortunate news that my brother, Ray Munroe, Jr. passed away from a heart attack on 3/11/12. He still wants his work to continue on beyond his death, and he tells me you are the man to do it. I know you don't know me, and I don't know you, but he tells me you are the one who will complete Einstein's theory with some infomration that I can provide you that originates from him. I'm not a physicist, but he told me to tell you a message & that you would understand. He keeps emphasizing the number "11" and gives me a list to give you: dark matter, anti-matter, nuclear energy, atomic energy, sub-atomic energy, sound, light, speed, time, space, and SPIRIT ENERGY - THIS IS THE MISSING LINK. He didn't completely buy into it before his death, but now he does because he IS spirit energy, and I can hear him. He said that when you complete your theory, that you will be the one to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a creator. Also, he wants you to study extra sensory perception. He and I have a theory that it is largely sound-based. Again, a chance for you to tie God & science together. I can visualize his ideas if you would like to discuss them, but you will have to discuss on a bright instead of brilliant level because I do not have a genius Iq like my brother, nor have I studied your technical physics terms. I have a BA in music therapy from FSU. If you are curious to hear more, then please let me know.

The biggest problem as I see it is that you frame gauge fields with gravitation in a way which is problematic. This is a direct product of an internal symmetry and the Lorentz group, which runs into trouble with the Coleman-Mandula theorem. This is tied in with the so called mass-gap problem. Supergenerators as the framing system introduce additional structure or charges (supercharges) which make this possible.

Your E_8 theory, or a variant of it, I think needs to be extended to a supersymmetric realization. This can I think be accomplished by using the SU(3)xE_6 decomp of the E_8 and realizing that the SU(3) is a holonomy from G_2 which can have supersymmetric structure.

There is a big problem in the thermodynamical pattern for the different step.

Our gauge is very poor in fact between 1 for strongs forces and the gravity.

In reading your book Ray, I ask me severals questions about the gauge.

Could you explain me why these strenghts above 10 exp -40.

My perception with spheres of the fractal implies a finite serie , the main central sphere seems the limit .At this scale, the energy of fields is maximum and the code of gravity is there too.

Thus there is a problem with all that.If we consider the main central sphere and its volume,let's assume the forces at the maximum at this scale like in all, thus the nuclear force,....and we goes in time evolution, thus we see the complexification of the mass.thus we can perceive the synchro with gravity and light , thus between 1 and 10 exp -39 the fractal is specific , only the density and thus the mass change, but the volume and the quantic number do not change.

Logically the time and the evolution is a constant duration where forces are correlated .Thus they(the entangled sphere) decrease their velocity of rotation during the evolution because the number do not change, that correlates with gravity.

Now the volume is correlated too with the forces .

When a sphere decrease its velocity , it increases its mass(logic if we consider this fusion of evolution) .

The volume is correlated in fact.The fusion is evolutive .

Between 1 and 10exp-40 , all that is confusing in the international system.

The senses of rotations for the stable gravity or the light linearity take a new road if we condider the fusion of evolution between the gravity which fractalizes the light due to the intrinsic code in the main central sphere.

The proportionality seems universal.

In logic all is proportional in fact with the thermodynamics.

If the gravity fractalizes and synchronizes light, that explains several things about the evolution and the increasing of mass.

But the cause of mass is intrinsic, only the density changes and not the number, thus the limit at the planck scale seems proportionals too.

This blog is about E8. Can it be proven (or dis-proven) to be the TOE? I have found that many people dispute whether or not a TOE is even possible, and throw Godel's Theorem around like it is a wrecking ball that can destroy any so-called TOE. Perhaps the only way the scientific community would even accept a so-called TOE would be if it could be simplified down to an E8. The conflict here is that (in my opinion) a rank-8 E8 seems too small to encompass a 10, 11 or 12-D String Theory. For better or for worse, you lose part of the scientific community (those of us - like Lawrence, Tom and me - who haven't given up on String Theory) when you turn your back on String Theory. I know that you personally live in a solid 3-D world and could care less about 8 or 11 dimensions.

Your question is more appropriate to Dirac's Large Number. How can a number like 10^40 exist as a stable 'near-infinity'? I am considering fractals in this application, but I do not have a strong mathematical proof (nor does the E-Infinity group so far as I can tell), but Tom Ray may have insight that the rest of us lack. I think that the statement "A stable infinity exists because fractals exist" needs to be proven.

ps don't be sure always , the doubt is our sister ,and nothing is made by hazzard.

the doubt and the confusions are not the same, and the serenity of this universality permits to distinguish the essential of the realistic determinism.

what is the nature of the pleasure, what is the real sense of the contemplation, what is the real pleasure when you see this universality.

The secrets of our minds are so secrets in their serenity, only if the universal faith seems on the road of contemplations.

It is personal and universal in fact simply.

I am going to show you dear Ray the different problems with E8 E12...Strings, Superstrings, M theory, extradimensions.With your book that will be easier, I just finish and after I come here in transparence.

The real foundamental problem is in the main physical referential and its limits.It is not a question of EPR or Copenaghen, No it is a real problme of topology and gauge about mass , dimensions and time .

But your math methods are interestings if they are used in the good referential with the respect of our laws and foundamentals equations .

The name TOE has no sense, even with my theory never I d say that, because the evolution exists and we have our limit.Furthermore it is a local hypothesis analyze, that's all.Thus of course the name is not adapted.

Even the name GUT, I say that for my Theory of Spherization by rotating spheres is arrogant because the name evolutive must be inserted like the name complementary.

The real synchros are synchronized with facility simply and naturaly, there the doubt is better than the confusions.

The beautiful thing about String Theory is that it contains all of the mathematics that we think we'll need (plus some extra stuff?) to achieve a GUT. The difficult thing about String Theory is that there are regimes that we don't know how to test. What are the odds of studying a Quantum Black Hole in an Earth-bound laboratory? The odds are much higher that a 7 TeV LHC will discover a Z'. How would that change our world-view? What if the Weak force has a higher-energy right-handed nature? Twenty years ago, we would have fought the idea of right-handed neutrinos.

Garrett's E8 included a Pati-Salam Theory that would require a Z'. My Hyperflavor Theory has two Z'.

What if a low-temperature Magnetic and/or Condensed Matter experiment (such as Coldea et al's) can reinforce an E8 theory?

We need to search for experimental verification of these exotic theories wherever we can find it.

The discussions are the best way to encircle the real sense of the meaning of things.

It is very important to differenciate the fun in sciences and the foundamental creativity.

We can't compare them.

The sciences and the researchs are not a play, during a short period, no it is a long long work of correlations between all natural sciences.

We can play like a funny hobby with our sciences dear Ray.

A real model is big and many centers have been studied.

Furtermore it evolves and completes itself with the foundamentals.

We can play at school dear Dr Cosmic Ray but not in the other side, because the sciences must be rationals.

All the equations of one of my favorite book of Zemanski about thermodynamics and Heat are correlated and synchronized.It exists proofs .The thermodynamics is esential and important like the mecanic .The relativity adapts the referential but do not change the foundamentals .

We can't say to the world sciences community so many confusions about our reality in 3D .

All is like that , even in nanocarbon technology, it is in 3d and with entangled spheres with incredible peoperties under thermodynamical variables.

Even ther I can agree about the creativity which is infinite like the add of properties in fact , but not the uniqueness.It is very very important because you pass above the limit Ray whan you extrapolate an infinite metric in the small, thus you forget to calculate all the reals before the Planck Scale, just due to this unfinity implying a false interpretation about forces.

We are straying off the E8 topic. Garrett Lisi is one of my Facebook friends. Out of respect, we should stay on E8 here, and maybe go to "The Beautiful Truth" at

http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/603

for other questions.

I think "String Theory" is more "braney" than "stringy". These branes are composed of simplices that *COULD* have properties similar to close-packing spheres. Now these so-called strings are represented by drawing a line from the center of one sphere to the next (and so on ad infinitum, if this braney simplex behaves like a lattice) and considering the mutual interactions of these spheres to be the string. What is the origin of the spheres? E8 is represented by a nearly spherical 8-D Gosset lattice. Similarly, my M2-brane is represented by the surface of a nearly spherical buckyball. Now we might have a string-sphere duality of the fundamental constituents of Nature that reflects the wave-particle duality of Quantum Mechanics.

Thus now you imagine spheres hihih it is well that .It was time dear Ray, but don't forget the fractal is speccific and finite and the form doesn't change like an incompressible ultim coded liquid.The number and the form do not change.

It is the rotations which imply mass.

Ok ok let's speak about the subject of this thread.You make me crazzy Ray , really.

Please who can explian me the meaning of "mirror fermions" please, dear Garret, Lawrence or Ray, I search the thermodynamical links but it is difficult , really.What are those fermions ?

While what you say is true (although I think the existence of mirror fermions in your theory is a bigger problem than you make out), you failed to mention a number of other problems with your theory -- ones that Distler and others pointed out for you. This is misleading.

That review article lists many, many papers with the word "mirror" in the title. But it doesn't discuss any particular one of them in any detail. And the papers, referenced, seem unrelated to each other and to what Garrett's trying to do.

Which of those papers discusses how to "giv[e] the mirror fermions large masses"?

The complaint, as I understand it, about Garrett's theory is that it is a non-chiral gauge theory. So what's relevant to Garrett's situation would be a mechanism for giving mass to the mirror fermions in a non-chiral gauge theory.

For a brief two hour period today, the LHC collider operated at 14 TeV.

The preliminary analysis of the recent collisions showed that the Higgs particle was isolated with a two sigma probability announced the leading computer scientist Dr. Loof Slirpa at an extraordinary press conference today. Stay tuned for updates in the coming days.

Lisi: "To this challenge, I have only one question in response: Do the fields of gravitational and standard model forces acting on a generation of fermions match a subset of algebraic elements of E8, or do they not?"

Of course that they don't, unless you use a definition of "matching" that "matches" whenever there are any objects of any kind on both sides. You can't ever get gravity as a subgroup of a Yang-Mills group in the bulk. You can't ever unite fermions and bosons via a symmetry that only has bosonic generators.

Nothing about your theory has ever worked, not even the most elementary tests. You may have gotten excited but that's because you don't have the slightest clue about high-energy physics.

I also think that Garibaldi and Distler are using a cannon against an ant. It's silly to try to reproduce some detailed tests concerning the number of generations etc. when it's obvious that the basic thing - a field theory with fields of various spin and statistics - can't ever be gotten from anything that resembles your "unification" model.

Don't get me wrong: I think that they're right and even if you ignore that you don't get the right gauge symmetries (including diffeomorphisms) and the right spin and statistics (and you don't solve anything about the non-renormalizability of gravity, either, and so on), the details that you boast to reproduce also fail to work. But because the latter is much less relevant given the absence of the consistency of the former, and given the fact that your paper has never been about physics but about a surfer dude who wants to impress other people who have no idea about physics, it's just a lost P.R. game for Distler and Garibaldi to be launching a "peer-reviewed" battle against your paper.

I am not sure what they want to achieve. It's clear that the people who have no idea about physics and who find it "cool" for a surfer dude to find a theory of everything and to beat the boring non-surfing "professional physicists" will continue to believe that a new genius is being discriminated against, while those who understand that your paper is flapdoodle won't read Distler and Garibaldi's reply, either. So they've manipulated themselves into the role of an appendix of a crank.

Otherwise, your comment that you can get rid of the "mirror fermions" - I suppose that you mean the right-handed portions of Dirac fermions to end up with the chiral ones - by giving them masses is absurd, too.

It violates the very basic facts about their quantum numbers. The reason is simple: the separate 2-component spinors carry nonzero quantum numbers such as the weak hypercharge or the weak SU(2) isospin. It follows that you can't create mass terms by "squaring them" without the complex conjugate - because the squared fermion field would carry nonzero charges, and such a term in the Lagrangian would break the hypercharge U(1) or isospin SU(2) symmetries which is inconsistent for these gauge symmetries.

So the only way to give them masses would be to write the product of a fermion and its mirror pair - but that makes massive all of them.

If you thought that you can write a mass term by writing a "2 component spinor" times "its complex conjugate", let me remind you that this tensor product doesn't include any Lorentz scalar that could be added to the Lagrangian. It's because the complex conjugation changes dotted spinor indices to undotted ones, or vice versa, but a dotted and undotted spinor can't be multiplied to produce a scalar. So no Lorentz-invariant mass term can ever be written down for the "unwanted fermions" only.

What you write is just complete nonsense. You can't get gravity from a gauge group in the bulk, you can't get fermions, you can't get chirality, you can't get renormalizability (of gravity), you can't get anything that matters in high-energy physics. You can only be excited about this rubbish if you're on crack.

The problem is that of “framing,” where triality is presumed to give rise to mirror fermions. A further problem, one even greater IMO, is that gravitation is treated on the same level as internal gauge fields. This runs into trouble with the Coleman-Mandula “no-go” theorem. The only loophole is with the Haag-Lopuszanski-Sohnius theorem with spinor rep of the Lorentz group, which permits a graded algebra or supersymmetry as a route to supergravity.

I think the scheme, or the general philosophy of the scheme, Lisi advances should be reworked in a SUSY format with E_8xE_8, and where the framing of bosons and fermions should be worked with supergenerators.

They wan't understand, they understand but they wan't simply because they want continue their system even if they understand their errors, no it is an other problem dear Lubos , and a real global problem in fact.

It is sad simply.

It is a big joke.It is not a question of EPR or Copenaghen, No it is an other problem dear Lubos,unfortunally still and always the same problem which decreases our evolution and furthermore imply chaotic systems, look our Earth....a big joke where all cosumators are gentle consumators.And to sell something to a stupid man , it's easy, they invent some stupidities adapted for a better selling.

Where is thus the problem???? answer everywhere hihihihi happy to see a real revolutionary dear Lubos, which understand the realism and thus the chaos of this Earth ......

I don't know if the E8 Theory is correct or not, but it's scientific, so it's worth to study it. The theory is incomplete and many important questions can't be answered yet. So, some people are not honest in their criticism against the theory. On the contrary, other models of the high energy physics, that have gained much more attention in the last years and have been published at the more prestigious scientific journals, are no intended to solve scientific questions but rather metaphysical questions.

I agree with Motl's statement "You can't ever unite fermions and bosons via a symmetry that only has bosonic generators".

Just for fun, let's count degrees of freedom (dgf's). Start with the 90 fermion dgf's of Spin(10). Add in the right-handed neutrinos that we expect from neutrino mass oscillations, and we are up to 96 fermion dgf's. I have suggested that E8 has a pentality symmetry (that is broken). In my models, the pentality is (u_L, d_L, u_R, d_R, and a 'scalar quark'). We could call this 'scalar fermion' a 'ghost' or a 'tachyon' as well. These 'scalar fermions' appear to have an intrinsic spin of 1/2 in 8-D, but appear to have an intrinsic spin of 0 when reduced down to the 4-D of spacetime. Adding in 'scalar fermions', we now have 96 x 5/4 = 120 dgf's, which looks like an H4 120-plet (but remember that 'scalar fermions' are not properly defined in the 4-D of H4), or half of an E8 240-plet (with properly defined 'scalar fermions), but what happens to the other 120 dgf's? These are the questionable mirror fermions. The most logical answer is Supersymmetry. Spin 1/2 quarks introduce spin 0 squark partners. Spin 1/2 leptons introduce spin 0 slepton partners. Spin '0' 'scalar fermions' introduce new, heavier (because Supersymmetry and pentality - if these symmetries exist - are obviously broken symmetries) spin '1/2' 'fermion' partners.

If we fill the 240 roots of E8 using Supersymmetry, then we cannot use exclusively bosons for our eight E8 basis vectors. We actually need *TWO* 8-plets of basis vectors (8 basis bosons plus 8 basis bosinos - such as spin 1/2 gluinos, photino, Zino,...) - which doesn't fit in a standard E8. And it still wouldn't include all bosons - for instance we need eight gluons, not just the two basis gluons. My 'scalar fermions' displaced Garrett's extra gluon, Higgs and W dgf's, but we have to remain true to our symmetries, and a five-fold pentality symmetry is embedded in E8.

Garrett used a Pati-Salam Weak which has a new Z' boson. But discovery of a Z' at the LHC would confirm Pati-Salam without necessarily confiming Lisi's E8.

Dear Lubos,

I agree that Garrett's model has errors. In my opinion E8 is a minimum of 8-D, and not enough dimensions to properly represent String Theory/ M-Theory. What if E8 is a TOE component? How many extra degrees of freedom would we need to make it work?

I didn't know the brachistochrone curve, it is fascinating in fact.Still and always the sphere dear friends, still and always the sphere and its rotations....the solution always is facilitated by the sphere and its comportments of motion.

About the referential, it is always a question of serie and limits when we want correlate to the realism of the physicality.

That facilitates the understanding of the different steps before the wall.

Still and always the sphere dear friends, still and always the sphere and its rotations....

Here is the question of the day....the identity of euler ...... ,why is it better to write correctly the identity of Euler, a first step was made with e exp i pi + 1 = 0 (first step the - is harmonized in the physicality), but still the zero must be adapted, who has an idea ,hihihihi ?

The groups and the constants in the finite system takes a beautiful road.

Are you all physcis professors? I am in high school and am debating whether to major in Physics or Engineering. I enjoy science and am currently taking AP physics and calculus. I always wanted to attend Berkeley and got my acceptance letter already and now I just finishing high school and am preparing for next fall. I stated I wished to major in engineering but I am thinking I might go for Physics instead.

The only thing I am worried about is getting a job. With engineering you can get a very nice job with a good salary. With physics, I believe you need a PhD to get a job anywhere. I would certainly like to eventually get a graduate degree but I am not quite sure what to choose.

As far as the stuff here. I find it hard to understand what you guys are talking about when you discuss things like spinors and mirror particles.

Also, if I can ask a question of the physicists here regarding black holes and general relativity I would appreciate it.

I read a lot of books and watch science programs about black holes and stuff but I still don't understand it. In our science club we had a talk about einsteins general relativity and our teacher gave the diagram of the ball sitting on a rubber sheet with grids on it. The ball distirted the grid and another ball placed on the grid would start to move because the grid was distorted by the other ball sitting on it. This doesn't make sense to me and the teacher couldn't give me the exclanation of why a body would move at all, regardless of whether space is curved.

I can buy the idea that mass causes the space around it to be curved. What I don't understand is how another body around the mass would start to move just because the space is curved. So if I have an object not moving, how does the curvature of space start the ball to suddenly start moving? Doesn't it require a force anyways? Sure the object would move through the space that is curved but what causes the movement to begin with? Our teacher didn't have any answer. It makes no sense to me.

I have a Ph.D. in High Energy Physics Phenomenology, taught for a few years, then left the field for a better-paying opportunity. If money is your first passion, you probably will make more money with a Masters in Engineering than with a Doctorate in Physics. However, if the search for knowledge is your passion, you might want to learn enough physics to be able to participate in these discussions. I'm the CEO of a family business during the day, but physics is my favorite hobby, and this blog-site is one of my outlets.

And like Tom recommended, there is a lot of information on sites like Wikipedia. I wouldn't trust them 100%, but it is usually an accurate start.

I realize that "rubber sheet geometry" is a popular teaching tool, but I honestly wish they would retire that analogy.

It doesn't really give you the true flavor of general relativity. In GR, space is mostly flat, Euclidean. It is only at great concentrations of mass that this rubber sheet thing applies, and it doesn't apply well at that, because you are getting only a 2-dimensional view of a 3-dimensional phenomenon embedded in a 4-dimensional spacetime. So it isn't suprising that, if you are at all a deep thinker in this subject, you would be confused as well as unsatisfied.

I think something to help you decide whether you want to be a physicist or not, is a serious read of Einstein & Infeld's classic, The Evolution of Physics. That will bring you through classical mechanics, and up to relativity. If you appreciate what's in there, you will surely want to probe deeper. It's an easily accessible book even for a high schooler, no heavy duty mathematics, but a lot of insight.

So far as your teacher's dilemma of not being able to answer why a body would move at all -- nobody can. The origin of inertia is still a mystery. In terms of this "rubber sheet" relationship, however, we can calculate the attraction between masses by Einstein's gravity equation -- you can look that up. You probably won't understand it, but get the flavor, anyway. It describes the gravity field in which the bodies move.

Alright. Thanks. These probably sound like dumb questions to the advanced people here. I am just confused as to why the mass starts moving without a force to move it. I understand the curvature part when realtivity states that mass curves space, but it doesn't explain why the mass would deicde to start moving through the curved space in the first place so it makes it look like there is a force. The old law of physics by Newton says that a body won't move unless a force is applied to it so I can't understand how a body would start moving just because space is curved. So what if space is curved?

Theoretical physics embraces non-intelligence. Particles of matter are dumb. Nothing tells anything else how to bend or move unless there is a real explanation. Einstein's name is not enough to explain why there is gravity. If an object undergoes acceleration then it is being acted upon by a force. What is force?

In the United States anyone in the business of science or engineering is in the bueiness of going out of business. To pursue a physics career I advise becoming fluent in one or more foreign languages so you can expand your options in the world. The US of A is a declining civilization (has been for the last several decades), one which is degenerating into an economy favoring a few investment fat-cats and bankers, and where the rest of us will be left working casinos and tatoo parlors.

In the United States liberty is the engine of invention. Those who are in science and engineering and who emprace liberty will thrive. The key is to avoid simplistic ideologies from those who are educated but who have not completed the full cycle of learning and remain embedded in their own self-pride. Be not led to unrealistic thoughts that originate in the minds of those who desire to dominate you or to be admired by you. You can recognize the false prophets because they will not give straight answers to your scientific questions. They give a smattering of facts and make grand pronouncements, not knowing that they have not yet learned that they know nothing.

All politics is trash, and more to the point political ideology is crap. It is the case that a dominant political party or one going to some sort of extreme ends up bringing up personality disordered and sociopathic types. Oh and yeah, conservatives (GOP) have run things in the US by about a 2 to 1 margin for the last 40 years. The nation has lost considerable ground on nearly all fronts of R&D and industry through the time period.

"All politics is trash, and more to the point political ideology is crap."

Politics is a function of liberty. It is the business of the people and their representatives. There is, of course the intrusion of crap such as socialism and communism. Even as crappy is psuedo scientific dogma that makes no sense and lacks logical and empirical support. Politics is trash for tyrants who wish to dominate humanity. There is of course the pretense that it is for the good of humanity. Without exception, it is for the tyant's needs.

"It is the case that a dominant political party or one going to some sort of extreme ends up bringing up personality disordered and sociopathic types."

The typical immature name calling of middle schoolers is typical of intellectually immature middleschoolers.

Both politics and science function to serve humanity in spite of the middleschoolers who would simply make noise in order to disrupt and gain attention for themselves.

We could perhaps finally make progress if only someone truly brilliant could explain the fundamentals of theoretical physics. Like: What is force; what is mass; what is electric charge; what is temperature; what is thermodynamic entropy?

Getting back to my original message: "Theoretical physics embraces non-intelligence. Particles of matter are dumb. Nothing tells anything else how to bend or move unless there is a real explanation. Einstein's name is not enough to explain why there is gravity. If an object undergoes acceleration then it is being acted upon by a force. ..." What is force physicist?

You asked, "Getting back to my original message: "Theoretical physics embraces non-intelligence. Particles of matter are dumb. Nothing tells anything else how to bend or move unless there is a real explanation."

Actually, there is no way in principle to tell if moving particles are intelligent or not.

"Einstein's name is not enough to explain why there is gravity."

One shouldn't confuse science with philosophy.

"If an object undergoes acceleration then it is being acted upon by a force. ..." What is force physicist?"

Time will tell the truth, but it looks like we traded better climate science for worser space science. We also traded better Health Care for the poor for worser Health Care for the elderly (and it involved one of the ugliest displays of politics that I've seen in a while - my Representative 'Blue Dog Democrat' Alan Boyd advertised that he was opposed to Health Care reform, but voted for it anyway). The economy is still pretty slow (despite the fact that the government now owns more of it). We are still involved in two wars. We still have aggressor nations who hate us. The more things 'CHANGE', the more they stay the same.

Can we get back to Lisi's theory? I would much rather talk about that.

"You asked, "Getting back to my original message: "Theoretical physics embraces non-intelligence. Particles of matter are dumb. Nothing tells anything else how to bend or move unless there is a real explanation.""

'Actually, there is no way in principle to tell if moving particles are intelligent or not.'

Can change of velocity of a particle of matter be the result or the cause of intelligent activity?

"Einstein's name is not enough to explain why there is gravity."

'One shouldn't confuse science with philosophy.'

I am not clear on what your are driving at. Is "Take a tip from John Wheeler: "Mass tells space how to bend; space tells mass how to move."" science or philosophy?

"If an object undergoes acceleration then it is being acted upon by a force. ..." What is force physicist?"

'What is "physicist?"'

Physicist was Dr. Crowell. Actually, anyone is welcome to answer that question. Another question would be: Is gravity a force? And: Is force an act of intelligence? This matters a great deal. It either is or is not. If it is not, then I think we have no physics theory that can explain this universe that gave birth to intelligent life.

A doctorate or others is not the most important, but the real quest of the truths is a beautiful road of learning.

It exists good or bad books, good or bad teachers, good or bad works,....but when a theory or an idea, or an equation is foundamental, it synchronizes itself simply with our laws and universals correlations.

The universality is a good teacher and the desire to understand is so important.

The sciences are everywhere and in interactions ,the good books dear Anonyme , the good books and the foundamentals equations, it is only simple like that...Newton ,Bohr, Feyman,Gallilei,Einstein ,Darwin,....in fact we must continue their works simply and continue the correlations.

When the confusions appear thus forget these things, when you feel the synchro, continue ....

Good luck and regards....choose well your university and your centers of interests ,

Gravity is not really a force. The motion of bodies due to gravitation is geodesic motion, or due to extremal paths in curved spacetime. The point of supergravity or unification is to indicate how the other gauge forces are ultimately a similar physics.

As for politics, if we want to really return something called democracy to the process there is one things everyone can do: turn off the television. The whole process has been turned into a complete media three ring circus of nonsense and disinformation.

In my opinion, the origin of gravity exists in the 5-brane of hyperspace, is translated to spacetime via entanglement (lattice models like Lisi's and mine may lead to conserved geometrical-like quantum numbers) or entropy (Verlinde-like) or fractal properties (El Naschie-like), and is observed via spacetime geometrical effects. The origin of mass is also hidden. If this is the case, then we need to seriously ask ourselves "Can we reconstruct the hyperspace gravitational Lagrangian that leads to observed spacetime gravity?" So much is hidden and mis-understood...

You asked, "Can change of velocity of a particle of matter be the result or the cause of intelligent activity?"

Of course. And usually is. You're assuming that there is some boundary between intelligent behavior and self organized behavior, yet no such boundary can in principle be shown. A swarm of particles -- whether they be pollen grains in Brownian motion, birds in flight, or human beings in a traffic pattern -- exhibit behaviors that differ according to the scale of observation. One makes assumptions about the physics of the behavior, but one can neither assign nor deny properties of intelligence.

You asked, "I am not clear on what your are driving at. Is "Take a tip from John Wheeler: "Mass tells space how to bend; space tells mass how to move."" science or philosophy?"

Science. Wheeler is explaining how the fundamental physically real element of general relativity -- spacetime -- informs the continuous relationship between mass points in its field. Field theories in general contain the mechanics for communicating point to point. If you understood Lubos Motl's criticism of Garrett Lisi's theory, you see that Motl is asking, basically, "Where's the physics?" I.e., if it's true as Motl says that Lisi's theory contains only bosonic relationships (bosons are massless), then getting field theory dynamics from it is problematic, because without mass points (fermionic particles) there is no dynamic communication, no mechanics.

You asked, "Another question would be: Is gravity a force? And: Is force an act of intelligence? This matters a great deal. It either is or is not. If it is not, then I think we have no physics theory that can explain this universe that gave birth to intelligent life."

Gravity in general relativity is not a force; it is a consequence of the shape of space evolving in time. Whatever you mean by "act of intelligence" does not inform us of what "intelligence" means. Actually, we can get all the consequences of the physical world from principles of self organization, in which intelligence is an emergent phenomenon. No need to assume intelligence a priori.

As another poster stated, if money is your primary concern, engineering would likely be the more prudent choice. With physics, it is true that you need a PhD to really get anywhere and a Bachelors degree will noto amount to much in the market. An industry that would hire a R&D physicist would likely want someone with extensive knowledge and experience in a paticular sub-discipline of condensed matter physics. The R&D industry is not really interested in hiring particle physicists. They want someone who will help them develop new products.

You can gain very good employment with just an undergraduate degree in a discipline of Engineering. Chemical engineers are in especially big demand.

So, I would eveluate how far you plan on taking your education and do you think you will stick with it all the way to a PhD? If you just want a four-year degree and then plan on heading out to start making a living, I would not reccomend physics as a major as you won't have enough specialized knowledge of any specific area--you gain this specialized knowledge in graduate school. With engineering, you are specializing in one area as an undergraduate.

I know you could not tell from my message what my position really is. I do not assume there is some boundary between intelligent behavior and the rest of the universe. You used the phrase self organized behavior. What do you say is the physical means by which self organization occurs. Is the means described by theoretical physics?

"Science. Wheeler is explaining how the fundamental physically real element of general relativity -- spacetime -- informs the continuous relationship between mass points in its field. Field theories in general contain the mechanics for communicating point to point."

This seems to be a repitition of your previous answer. What is the mechanics for communication point to point. I am not aware that anyone has isolated either space or time for our inspection. Can you point to a explainable cause and not to effects?

"If you understood Lubos Motl's criticism of Garrett Lisi's theory, you see that Motl is asking, basically, "Where's the physics?" I.e., if it's true as Motl says that Lisi's theory contains only bosonic relationships (bosons are massless), then getting field theory dynamics from it is problematic, because without mass points (fermionic particles) there is no dynamic communication, no mechanics."

Even with mass points there is no dynamic communication, no mechanics. That is unless you can explain what cause is?

"Gravity in general relativity is not a force; it is a consequence of the shape of space evolving in time. Whatever you mean by "act of intelligence" does not inform us of what "intelligence" means. Actually, we can get all the consequences of the physical world from principles of self organization, in which intelligence is an emergent phenomenon. No need to assume intelligence a priori."

We have no means whatsoever to conduct experiments on either space or time. All data has to do with objects. So the force gravity remains an unexplainable force. It causes matter to accelerate. It is a force. Is there another way of showing that gravity is not a force?

Reliance upon principles of self organization is taking something that is observed and saying that it contains all of the potential properties necessary to cause all of the observed effects. That potential must include the means for intelligence. Intelligence cannot emerge from dumbness. It emerges from fundamental properties that must already contain in potential form every observed intelligent effect. You say there is: "No need to assume intelligence a priori." Of course there is. Intelligence cannot arise from dumbness. Higher intelligence cannot arise from lower intelligence. All effects must be provided for in the properties that existed since the beginning of the universe. Obviously those properties cannot be only dumb properties.

I had started to make a long reply addressing your questions one by one, assuming that you were serious in your inquiry. I somehow hit the wrong button, however, and lost all the information I had typed in the window.

No matter, though, when I returned and read your final paragraph, which I had not gotten to, I realized that any reply would be pointless. All that you wrote, I'm afraid, comes under the heading of "not even wrong" (Pauli). In fact, we know to a reasonable certainty that the idea of a designer universe is superfluous--and yes, self-organization is a huge research area in theoretical physics. You might want to look it up.

My messages are serious. Why theoretical physicsts think that they can define a universe using dumb, inanimate, purposeless properties and end up with intelligence as a given is definitely unclear to me. I am sorry that you feel that understanding the origin and cause of intelligence is "not even wrong".

Intelligence is not theory, it is fact. Your theories are not facts. They are invented ideas about the nature of cause. We receive all information in the form a a mixed storm of photons coming to us at the speed of light from innumerable sources. We must already know how to discern patterns and how to decide the best choices among patterns and how to apply meaning to those patterns and how to then draw ourselves a mental picture of what we think is occurring. That interpretation of photonic date is an entirely local phenomenon. All meaning that we attach to it, including the idea of distance, is not experienced by us directly. We add the idea of distance and continuity.

"Gravity is not really a force. The motion of bodies due to gravitation is geodesic motion, or due to extremal paths in curved spacetime. The point of supergravity or unification is to indicate how the other gauge forces are ultimately a similar physics."

This is silliness. You have no curved spacetime data. You have only data about the motion of objects. Is there any other way besides relying upon theoretical constructs that can show us that gravity is not really a force? What real empirical difference separates gravity out from other forces?

"As for politics, if we want to really return something called democracy to the process there is one things everyone can do: turn off the television. The whole process has been turned into a complete media three ring circus of nonsense and disinformation."

I understand that you are impatient with having to let others express and even worse implement their ideas. You are helpful here in showing why democracy is the best solution. It may not please any of us all or even most of the time, but, it is better by far than having always to do things your way or the way of someone else who feels as you do but has the determination to force the rest of us to dance on the end of their strings.

"Solipsism is not science, and hardly a worthy topic in a science forum."

How about forgetting the tactic of dismissal? You may be a superior intellect, but, that is not apparent yet. How about answering questions with answers? getting back to: "Take a tip from John Wheeler: "Mass tells space how to bend; space tells mass how to move."

Is there anyway you can actually explain the physics interpretation of 'tells' without resorting to your imaginary causes? I have to ask this question because, it is clear that we do not know what cause is. No one knows what cause is. What is electric charge? Is it one of your possible answers, then you have no answer. If you become interested I will explain why. If you already know the answers then how about please giving some answers that do not involve guesses and conjecture?

"Can we get back to Lisi's theory? I would much rather talk about that."

I do not agree with Dr. Crowell's politics. I think he should stick to his specialty of inventing other dimensions.

I looked in and saw what Tom had to say and felt it needed to be challenged. After-all, real answers should not be so cryptic and unscientific. A real empirical answer would have sufficed. If Dr. Crowell chooses to take the opportunity to go off topic just because I re-appear to ask a scientific question, then, I respond so that he gets pushed backward. I do not understand why his political nonsense survives. However, there are many others like him who wish to perfect the world so that it no longer offends their immature senses.

I say their senses stink. I say they are not the saviors they make themselves out to be. I think that they think in very simplistic ways that are prone to causing social damage more than improvement. If this thread could stay on topic, I think that would be an improvement. I challenged Tom and I am far more interested in his answers than I am in Dr. Crowell's vitriolic views. I think it should be possible to engage in scientific debate without him interjecting half baked political ideology.

I would very much like to see you and others get back to Lisi's theory.

More than half the people here are not competent physicists. They are random members of the public who want to understand or who think they understand or who have their own ideas or philosophy that they want to push. Just because they talk about space and energy and physics does not mean they understand the subject. Some of them are probably more confused than you are.

You may have noticed on the Internet that when anyone may contribute to a discussion, that includes people who don't know what they are talking about, and even people who don't know that they don't know what they are talking about. The situation is especially bad on physics forums, because there are just so many people who think they have it figured out, or who refuse to believe the modern discoveries, and so on.

I recognize the name Lawrence Crowell above. As I recall he is involved in speculative theoretical research which I personally think is in the wrong direction, but I can guarantee that he does truly understand orthodox quantum mechanics and general relativity. So he is probably a safe person to listen to, if you have basic questions about theoretical physics.

As for the career advice, I have no answer. People don't do degrees in advanced physics for job security. But competence in physics does indicate mathematical, logical, and problem-solving ability. During the height of the recent financial bubble, mathematical physics graduates found it relatively easy to get a job in mathematical finance. I personally know many physicists who went into biology. So a physics degree can indirectly be an asset.

I am not refraining from reply to you because you have me, or anyone, stumped. I refrain because your questions simply do not pertain to science. Insofar as your view has any science in it at all, it is that of Aristotle, which was abandoned by the sciences long ago.

You ask, "Is there anyway you can actually explain the physics interpretation of 'tells' without resorting to your imaginary causes? I have to ask this question because, it is clear that we do not know what cause is. No one knows what cause is."

Of course not. Nor is it either necessary or relevant to science to know what cause "is." There's no "isness", no innate something that changes nature from dead to animate. What we do know, is that in the positive feedback effects of a self organized universe, cause is overwhelmed by decohering effects -- Murray Gell-Mann is the major light in explaining quantum decoherence. I agree heartily with Gell-Mann that "something else" is never required to explain a phenomenon; no mysticsm need enter.

You are exercised over Wheeler's wonderful metaphor for general relativity: "mass tells space how to bend; space tells mass how to move." No, of course, one doesn't interpret it literally, as a human-like conversation. It is quite accurate, however, in that local effects of mass interacting with spacetime involve communication -- exchange -- of properties among points in the field. Mass effects change in the massless points of space, as the spacetime field changes relative location of mass points by directing their motion.

You may reserve your right to be incredulous. Your personal belief is your own business. We know these effects to be valid, however, by experiment. Even if turns out (a long shot, but possible) that relativity theory has to be adjusted, no facts would change -- just as the facts of Newtonian physics did not change with Einstein's adjustment.

Dear James, they do not want understand simply, it's a job for them , they win monney with these stupidities and absurdities,they shall continue thus unfortunaly.

Even in the LHC and in all labs, these monney implies chaos and decrease of velocity of evolution.

In fact they speak abot democracy or others but they dislike the truths, the real democracy and the real universality.

They confound all in sciences, they use maths tools to manipulate the public simply, they use the badest method for their credibility.

Their vanity is their sister.Their words are without universalism, without the real foundamentals.

It is logic in fat to see these planets in this state.

It exists only a few people who are real searchers, real experimentalists, real scientists.

I invite them to study the horticulture ahahah they shall be more happy .

SAD and the word is weak....

Best Regards dear James and congratulations for your works, the origin of the intelligence is foundamental and purely linked with the mass.I liked a lot to read it on the net you know.

I saw an interesting idea about the velocity of rotation, indeed the mass is linked, the spheres when they decrease their spinal velocity, increase their mass, thus their we can insert the informations, the fusion light gravity, and the increase of mass, the volume do not change, only the density and the mass, thus the quantic number too do not change.After the evolution is important to encircle the polarisations aged from 13.7 billions years, thus the volumes of the spheres are essentials.

"I am not refraining from reply to you because you have me, or anyone, stumped. ..."

Of course you are stumped. You do not know what cause is? Therefore, your theories about causes are guesses.

"I refrain because your questions simply do not pertain to science. Insofar as your view has any science in it at all, it is that of Aristotle, which was abandoned by the sciences long ago. ..."

Please not the dismissal tactic again. Answers are what win debates.

"..."You ask, "Is there anyway you can actually explain the physics interpretation of 'tells' without resorting to your imaginary causes? I have to ask this question because, it is clear that we do not know what cause is. No one knows what cause is."...

Of course not. Nor is it either necessary or relevant to science to know what cause "is."..."

Wow! I am impressed by this admission, but you do not seem to be aware that your theoretical beliefs survive or fall by what you deem cause to be. If theoretical physicsts, in general, admitted this we would advance scientific learning about the meaning of empirical evidence without being forced to swear allegiance to the guesses about the nature of cause offered by theoretical physicists

"There's no "isness", no innate something that changes nature from dead to animate. "

Ok. Another unsupportable grand pronouncement. Very unscientific.

"What we do know, is that in the positive feedback effects of a self organized universe, cause is overwhelmed by decohering effects -- Murray Gell-Mann is the major light in explaining quantum decoherence. I agree heartily with Gell-Mann that "something else" is never required to explain a phenomenon; no mysticsm need enter."

You are welcome to agree with whomever you please, but my question challenged you to explain how the evolution of intelligence occurs by means of the properties presented to us by theoretical physics?

"You are exercised..."

I am asking you to be scientific in your answers to the point that you can explain things? I think you are excercised in trying to pretend that you are explaining why anything happens. Can you please answer a question directly? What empirical evidence do you have to offer that space and time bend? What experiements were performed upon either space or time?

"...over Wheeler's wonderful metaphor for general relativity: "mass tells space how to bend; space tells mass how to move." No, of course, one doesn't interpret it literally, as a human-like conversation. It is quite accurate, however, in that local effects of mass interacting with spacetime involve communication -- exchange -- of properties among points in the field. Mass effects change in the massless points of space, as the spacetime field changes relative location of mass points by directing their motion. ..."

"This claim is just plain unexplainable and even more importantly has no empirical basis. Matter tells matter what to do! That is all you know. You have nothing to show for what happens inbetween. If you do then please show it?!

"You may reserve your right to be incredulous. Your personal belief is your own business. ..."

As is yours.

"...We know these effects to be valid, however, by experiment. ..."

Holy cow. You have finally gotten to the point. The point is that we only know about effects. We do not know what cause is. You may list the effects, I have no problem with that. Empirical evidence is a welcome sight when conversing with theoretical physicists.

"...Even if turns out (a long shot, but possible) that relativity theory has to be adjusted, no facts would change -- just as the facts of Newtonian physics did not change with Einstein's adjustment."

Of course facts do not change. Theory changes. The reason theory changes, and is vulnerable to drastic changes, is that it purports to explain what cause is. You nor anyone else knows what cause is. For a single example: The early stages of theory included defining a property we call mass. Even today no one knows what mass is. When we learn what mass is, everything could change.

I noticed that Tom made an effort to call in the troops be referring to 'anyone else'. You did not respond to my question: Do you have anything else to offer, besides the unempirically provable space-time, to show that gravity is not a real force? By the way, what I really seem to be asking is for real answers about the nature of cause.

"Intelligence is not theory, it is fact. Your theories are not facts. They are invented ideas about the nature of cause. We receive all information in the form a a mixed storm of photons coming to us at the speed of light from innumerable sources. We must already know how to discern patterns and how to decide the best choices among patterns and how to apply meaning to those patterns and how to then draw ourselves a mental picture of what we think is occurring. That interpretation of photonic date is an entirely local phenomenon. All meaning that we attach to it, including the idea of distance, is not experienced by us directly. We add the idea of distance and continuity."

I welcome a response from any theoretical physicist that does not rely upon mystical answers of empirically unobservable properties introduced by theoretical physicists into otherwise empirically based equations. Please, leave mystical, i.e. invented and unverifiable, theories out of this. I will ask for explanations.

What does it mean to anyone interested in real answers to say that the universe caused intelligence to evolve? Theoretical physics offers only dumbness in the form of mechanical type forces. What is the empirical evidence that shows that dumbness can produce, and in the case of theoretical physics can predict, intelligence. E8 or E88 or E888 or XXXX or YYYY or ZZZZ or any physics theory.

All I can really do is to implore you to read some real literature on general relativity. You could also watch the Susskind Lectures on Relativity. There are 12 of these and they take about 1.75 hours each. The first starts out pretty elementary, but if you watch these you will read some basic foundations towards the end. I really do not have time to write a whole essay on the nature of gravitation here.

"...I really do not have time to write a whole essay on the nature of gravitation here."

Thank you for your cordial message and suggested resource. I wasn't looking for a lecture on relativity theory, rather a short emirical type answer. As you already know, I think relativity theory is clearly wrong. I also think theoretical physics is fundamentally flawed beginning back with f=ma. The area I am not yet prepared to speak about is quantum mechanics. That is the area I am currently looking at and working on.

"Really James, this has gone beyond ridiculous. Special and general relativity are kinetic theories; therefore, empirical. ..."

No theory is empirical. Theory is the accumulation of guesses that the theorists choose, because of their own philosphical biases, to replace that which they do not know about why the universe functions as it does....

"Really James, this has gone beyond ridiculous. Special and general relativity are kinetic theories; therefore, empirical. ..."

No theory is empirical. Theory is the accumulation of guesses that the theorists choose, because of their own philosphical biases, to replace that which they do not know about why the universe functions as it does. Empirical science belongs to the real world, and, it studies patterns in effects. It is only effects that the universe makes known to us.

"...And you're taking issue with _Newtonian_ physics, too? Wow. ..."

The theoretical guess pushed onto f=ma was the decision to declare mass to be an indefinable property deserving its own indefinable units of measurement. No one could have known that that was true. It contradicts unity in the universe. Even worse, it made disunity a permanent part of our analysis of the operation of the universe. That is where theoretical physics first began to stray away from empirical science. That single act caused force to be improperly defined resulting in both energy and momentum being improperly defined and adversely affected all higher level theory that has made use of any of these properties.

Theoretical physics is a facade that prevents us from seeing the universe as it really is. I began removing that facade starting with f=ma. Behind the facade, I have found that the erroneous guesses of theoretical physics have been compounded and are distorting mass, electric charge, space, time, temperature, thermodynamic entropy, the origins of the fundamental constants of nature, the fine structure constant, permittivity, permeability, and have made disunity so firmly a part of our analyses that numerous unobservable properties must now be invented out of nothing in order to try to patch theory back together again. They are the new strain of guesses. That which we carelessly tore apart must now be joined back together with super, or hyper, but in any case, magic glue.

The guesses are easy to identify. Everytime a theorist declares a property to be a cause, it is a guess. Theory is the practice of inventing causes. No one knows what cause is. Furthermore, our equations cannot display cause on either side. If cause is found on either side, then that is a clear theoretical error. It may be a real, even though improperly defined, property, but it is not a 'cause'. There is a symbol that we use in our equations to represent all causes. That symbol is the equals sign.

All of your theoretical 'causes' could be squeezed behind the equals sign and empirical knowledge would not suffer. The equations would be better for it. They would be returned to their original, natural state. They would once again be empirical equations. Then, they could tell us the truth about that which we can know scientifically and that which we cannot. However, so long as they remain represented as physics equations, they can only serve to help us solve mechanical type problems.

I have previously objected to the use of the word 'tells'. It is certainly true that each object in the universe knows what to do. Cause is knowing what to do and reacting accordingly to an effect. An original cause is 'knowing everything to be done'. It is fair enough, in a general sense, to say that one object tells another what to do. My objection was directed at the use of the word 'tells' within the context of theoretical physics. Knowing, or intelligence, is the most important property of the universe, but it is not a property of theoretical physics. The philosophy upon which theoretical physics has been constructed cannot call upon any semblance of intelligent act in order to explain anything. The underpinning of the philosophy of theoretical physics is that the universe is mechanical, inanimate, purposeless and dumb. It can never know 'Why?'.

James, I think I understand Tom's sentiments here. If you think physics is wrong going back to Newton's De Motu and Principia, then in effect you are saying science itself is wrong. Of course all the while you state this using a machine which is fabricated with considerable knowledge of quantum theory of electrons and phonons in condensed matter. Unfortunately if this is the case then to echo Tom's statement discussion is simply impossible. You may want empirical knowledge of spacetime curvature (Check out Einstein Lens on Google), but if you reject the huge amount of empirical knowledge of supporting Newtonian mechanics, "at large" with weak gravity, then extensive discussion is futile.

Sorry, I thought I included this in my last message. It was not there. Einstein's lens is established empirical evidence. However, it is not evidence that his theory is correct. His theory was formed by the use of transform equations. They are not scientifically reliable. The point is that: Empirical evidence will reamin empirical evidence, but, it is not held captive to theoretical interpretation as, say many theoretical physicists appear to be. The scientific question is: What are the real properties of light that produce Einstein's lens, but because they are real, are not suceptible to falling victim to theory as many humans do?

I just want to second Brendan's comments (even though I'm not an admin). I don't necessarily agree with James' view, but having hashed out some things with him on another thread, he has an interesting, relevant, and potentially useful view.

Personally, I think its the political discussion that should be taken elsewhere.

I have avoided this conversation. It was somewhat off topic, and I like you, Lawrence and Tom - I'm not trying to offend anyone.

I appreciate that you question the foundations of Physics. In my opinion, any *EXPERT* should study a field to the point where he/she could tear it apart or build upon it, if so inspired. You should know the strengths and know the weaknesses of any truth system that you accept.

The Susskind lectures that Lawrence recommended yesterday are pretty good.

My opinion is that the weakness of modern physics is its refusal to admit that extra hidden dimensions exist. We wrap up all of the characteristic effects of hyperspace in our definitions of time and fields and particles. As such, we confuse real cause with our idea/model of cause, and we confuse real effect with our idea/model of effect.

I think it is fruitless to directly challenge Newtonian Physics or Relativistic Physics or Quantum Physics because these truth systems perform perfectly well in their regimes of validity. Generally, one cannot overthrow an established theory. The reason is that there is a buffer layer of mathematical modeling that removes theory from direct contact with experiment. If you 'overthrow' an aspect of an established theory, then we recognize an anomaly in the theory by inventing a new model for that specific case.

I think you should narrow your approach, or you won't be able to see the trees for the forest.

Hi, you are a polite, respectful person and it is a pleasure to know you even if only over the Internet. I think that my opinion should not affect the work that you and Dr. Crowell are cooperating on. I really do look forward to seeing your name attached to a successful submission to a formal scientific journal. I do not pretend to think that I could do the same.

Hi, you are a polite, respectful person and it is a pleasure to know you even if only over the Internet. I think that my opinion should not affect the work that you and Dr. Crowell are cooperating on. I really do look forward to seeing your name attached to a successful submission to a formal scientific journal. I do not pretend to think that I could do the same.

"...My opinion is that the weakness of modern physics is its refusal to admit that extra hidden dimensions exist. We wrap up all of the characteristic effects of hyperspace in our definitions of time and fields and particles. As such, we confuse real cause with our idea/model of cause, and we confuse real effect with our idea/model of effect."

I cannot support this view. Hidden is hidden. In other words, it is not, by definition, empirical. I think that the effects we observe are real, because, they take place in the same space and time in which we live. They are our real evidence. Anything else is added on as an imaginary fix for problems that we have created. That is what I think has and still is happening.

"I think it is fruitless to directly challenge Newtonian Physics or Relativistic Physics or Quantum Physics because these truth systems perform perfectly well in their regimes of validity. ..."

I do not think it is fruitless to review old interpretations in light of new knowledge. The successes of any theory old or new rely only upon the degree of accuracy achieved by the theorist to fit their theory to the patterns observed in empirical evidence. I pointed to this in my first message. Equations begin, or should begin, as accurately representing empirical knowledge. Once they have been reformed, by theorists, into something else that represents the theorist's unempirical point of view, then they can continue to usefully extrapolate or interpolate predictions of other effects that are inherently consistent with the original empirical patterns, but, are no longer valid as representing the true nature of the universe.

"...Generally, one cannot overthrow an established theory. The reason is that there is a buffer layer of mathematical modeling that removes theory from direct contact with experiment. ..."

If you are defining mathematical modeling as theoretical modeling, then I think that modeling immediately removes the empirical form of the equation from existence and replaces it with an unverifiable model of what the theorist wants to speculate about. Once the theorist's unempirical ideas have been stripped away, their theory is also simultaneously stripped away. The empirical form of the equations will remain. The removal of theory does not remove the foundational equations that model the patterns observed in empirical evidence.

"...If you 'overthrow' an aspect of an established theory, then we recognize an anomaly in the theory by inventing a new model for that specific case. ..."

In this case I disagree. If theory is the cause of the problem, then it must be exluded from the corrective action taken to remove the problem. My approach would be to remove inventive models first and then resist inventive models thereafter in fixes or whatever.

"Did you really mean to suggest that "cause" means "knowing everything to be done"? You really want to stick with that and defend it as a scientific definition?

Think carefully. .."

Do you still want to say: Mass tells space what to do and space tells mass what to do? Think carefully.

Denying the existence of intelligence is no substitute for explaining the existence of intelligence. By the way, you have not yet given your definition of cause. Also, I cannot be shamed by your condescension alone. I expect you to eventually give scientific responses.

James is trying to ask I think whether there is empirical proof for any physical theory. Of course there is none. Observation and measurement only support theories by confirming their predictions. In fact we can only prove theories false, either entirely so or where the theory breaks down outside some appropriate domain of observation.

I do think that james has stepped over the line from physics to metaphysics in general.

"James is trying to ask I think whether there is empirical proof for any physical theory. Of course there is none. ..."

I am not trying, I am actually asking for theorists, including you, to provide proof that your theories are more than your professional opinion.

"...Observation and measurement only support theories by confirming their predictions. ..."

That only confirms that their equations still retain enough connection of their empirical roots to give some more extrapolations and interpolations that fit the curve that they were designed to fit.

"...In fact we can only prove theories false, either entirely so or where the theory breaks down outside some appropriate domain of observation. ..."

As soon as you have to introduce imaginary properties to save them, they are already properly doomed.

"...I do think that james has stepped over the line from physics to metaphysics in general. ..."

You have misunderstood what is happening here. I am actually returning theoretical physics from imaginary physics back to real physics. I purposefully avoided using the term metaphysics, you have misused it, in this response because, it is not the risky less scientifically formal discipline that you appear to think it is. The original metaphysics was and still is the first disciplinary approach to science that any aspiring scientist, including physicists, should learn.

You wrote, "The original metaphysics was and still is the first disciplinary approach to science that any aspiring scientist, including physicists, should learn."

I told you a while back that your view is that of Aristotle, and now you say it directly. At least have the decency to credit him.

I am waiting for your definition of cause, because we have nothing scientifically objective to talk about without it. You show me yours and I'll show you mine; you started this, and now you appear not willing to own it. Again, do you want to stick with "cause" as "knowing everything to be done"? Do you mean Aristotle's first final cause?

And while we're at it, define "intelligence" in an objectively coherent and empirical way.

I admit that I have grown unreasonably impatient for a reply, so forgive me for going right ahead:

I can’t deny taking offense that one feels free to proclaim knowledge, without ever objectively defining one’s terms, or providing examples. If this is the way to truth, give me fantasy any day. A shared fantasy, after all, is at least objective; a solipsistic version of...

I admit that I have grown unreasonably impatient for a reply, so forgive me for going right ahead:

I can’t deny taking offense that one feels free to proclaim knowledge, without ever objectively defining one’s terms, or providing examples. If this is the way to truth, give me fantasy any day. A shared fantasy, after all, is at least objective; a solipsistic version of truth allows no objective knowledge at all.

So I will proceed to the scientific view of “cause,” and I will provide definitions and examples as are requisite to intellectual honesty.

1. In the first place, scientists usually refer to “causality” rather than “cause.” The reason is that cause implies an ordered historical relation between cause and effect that is irreversible. Physically, we know—because of the phenomenon of positive feedback—that this general statement is false. A common example is the feedback between microphone and amplifier; there is in principle no way to determine the cause of that disagreeable squeal that you hear. The closed loop of effects merely assumes a cause, without being burdened with the superfluous assumption that one or both of the instruments “knows everything to be done.”

Our experimental protocols are based on negative feedback, i.e., control systems. So we do, in acquiring evidence with the aim of falsifying a theory, have the advantage of assigning strict causality and interpreting effects as having preceded causes. Scientists know that no theory can ever be proved (only falsified); theories do have relative strengths (Popper called it verisimilitude, or “truth likeness”) according to the number of attempts to falsify that have failed. The Standard Model of particle physics, e.g., is the most successful theory in the history of science.

2. I’ll take a stab at formally defining causality: “An ordered relation (i) between nonempty sets (ii) by which physically real objects (iii) can be differentiated from measured results (iv).”

(iii) physically real: “ … independent in its physical properties, having a physical effect but not itself influenced by physical conditions.” (Einstein) E.g., spacetime is physically real in general relativity.

(iv) measured results: objectively agreeable standards. E.g., Einstein cited clocks to measure time and rods to measure space, and then showed that there is no preferred frame of observer reference by which clocks and rods agree. (The mathematical transform that you seem to have a problem with, only shows that observers in different inertial frames still live in the same universe even when their description of events differs.)

Now I want to illustrate the power of this shared scientific fantasy – if you want to call it that, it won’t bother me – through something that has transpired in the past few days.

And Brendan, I hope you’re listening in, because you will know what I’m talking about, through your association with Renate Loll. I would hope that you take this message back to her.

It happens that I was led (for reasons that originated in this FQXI forum but no longer matter) to read a July, 2008 article in Scientific American, “The Self Organizing Quantum Universe,” by Jan Ambjorn, Jerzy Jurkiewicz and Loll (AJL). It’s a really quite nice article on competing theories of quantum gravity, and I would suggest you read it, James, because it directly addresses the physicist’s treatment of cause and effect. (You can find a PDF linked on Prof. Loll’s site under press .)

In brief, the authors found through computer simulation of their model (causal dynamical triangulations) that what they call the spectral dimension of quantum spacetime returned a value of 4.02 (+/- 0.1). AJL interpret this value as the derivation of the observed number of dimensions (4) from first principles. What struck me, though, is that I derive this same value on the 3 dimensional shell of 4 dimensional spacetime by a pencil and paper method (also from first principles) to an exact 4.0229 … , suggesting that AJL’s error term is too large by one order of magnitude, and the value never actually dips below 4 (there is no error term in my calculation). We can be sure we are talking about the same thing, because our principle method of investigation – self organization – is the same. [*] What I mean is, AJL and I start with the identical hypothesis, “If dimensions are self organized in nature, these consequences follow …” I expect that AJL would be even more ecstatic if there were no error term in their simulation, if the result were exactly 4. I think it cannot be, however, and that the excess fraction – let’s call it the epsilon term – is the fraction of length 1 in n-dimensional hyperspace that accounts for gravity and for the low baryonic matter content in our universe. The lower the epsilon term, the weaker the gravity—and we know that gravity in our universe is very, very weak in comparison to the 3 known forces.

My point for this discussion is that however our models and calculations and interpretations differ, if objective reality exists, we come up with the same terms and the same story. Whether one thinks this is fantasy or not is highly irrelevant; scientists don’t start out assuming inaccessible “reality” or inaccessible “causes”. One simply adopts the language of objective communication, and compares notes with others who speak the same language. The precision with which our guesses and conjectures and theories match results –whether mathematical or empirical – is dependent on the precision of our mathematics, which gets better all the time.

Science, including the mathematical sciences, is the most democratic enterprise on Earth. There is no priesthood, no “proper” way to think about or approach a problem. Whatever we can imagine within the changing boundaries of our commonly objective language is fair game, with the one constraint that what we imagine does not contradict what we already know.

And we are very strict about what it _means_ to “know.” One knows by measured correspondence of theory to result. The result may be mathematical (as in AJL’s computer simulation) or it may be observational (I think Einstein lensing was mentioned here). The physical correspondence is of course the more convincing.

At any rate, when we say we know, we mean that we can show how we know.

Can you demonstrate how you know what you claim to know, James? If not, you are not doing science – as was my assertion from the beginning.

[*] (If one is interested, my site is linked on this same blog Apr 7, 2010 @ 14:28. The derived physical value is found in S3.3, p. 36 of my unpublished paper, “On Breaking the Time Barrier,” and the mathematical derivation is in my NECSI ICCS 2006 conference paper, “Self Organization in Real & Complex Analysis.”)

I looked up Causal Dynamical Triangulation, and was pleased (ok, a little giddy), that causality makes the tessellation of tetrahedrons, slices of space, in time ordered segments, work; they reproduce 3D space + time. Inside of these tessellated building blocks can have more dimensions, but the edges preserve causality. THIS KILLS TIME TRAVEL!!!

Any further speculation about other universes HAS TO proceed as variations of 4D space-time. I've been down this road for a while now. This is my algorithm:

1. Multiple universes exist, all of which must be non interacting (weakly coupled)4D space-times.

2. I can vary the speed of light and the Planck constant.

3. Each universe has its own imaginary time line which results in its own charges, light, electric field and quantum mechanics.

4. I define a set of orthogonal imaginary time lines, one for each universe.

By the way, in a debate I had with someone over the impossibility of time travel, I had to convince them that Determinism cannot be 100% by pointing to the randomly picked eigenstates of an electron. Ten thousand identical Big bangs will evolve ten thousand different ways. Therefore, time travel cannot depend upon determinism. Free will and choice exist. Electrons have free will, but make purely stupid choices.

What is intelligence? Let's start with: what is stupidity? I'll resit the urge to discuss politics. Electrons have the free will to choose their eigenstate. They are, however, too stupid to known what they want or follow instructions. However, multi-cellular organisms with a brain stem and some intelligence, instincts and memory can make some fairly intelligent, perhaps even self serving, choices. Liberals fit this description (oops!).

I don't like Lawrence's politics either. If ignorance is bliss, then Lawrence has mastered the art of philosophical misery.

However, I like Lawrence. I think he might turn out to be correct when his tessellation approach is combined with causal dynamical triangulation.

Dear Lawrence,

I don't want to hurt your feelings and I am sorry for it. But your very negative philosophical views are like a tumor that needs to be destroyed. Specifically, (1) the idea that the human race will die out and

"I am waiting for your definition of cause, because we have nothing scientifically objective to talk about without it."

You do not get to define what is scientifically objective for me.

To me what you appear to be saying is that: If my definition does not fit with your philosophical preference, then it cannot be scientific. Your philosophical preference is yours not mine. I am not contained or governed by it. If you wish to think mechanically, then so be it. Science is the study of the real universe and that universe gave birth to intelligent life.

You already received my definition of cause. Here is the point that you do not understand: Making up mechanical causes for the purpose of satisfying ones philosophical preference is not superior to acknowledging that the universe knows what to do. Obviously the universe knows what to do. Intelligence is the most important property displayed by the universe. It is not made up.

If your question is: What does it mean to say that the universe knows what to do? Then the answer is: It knows what to do for the the real reasons, whatever their true nature, that we do not yet understand because theoretical physicist do not want to look for them. They want, instead, to believe in their own imaginary, made up, causes. If you would stop obstructing scientific learning, than perhaps we could progress beyond mechanics. I chose to not to be a cosmic mechanic.

Do you have a cause that you can show is real? Define it in your own terms.

My time is not set by you. By the way, who is the we in we're? You are on your own for now.

"...allow me to ask how one would know that particles in Brownian motion are not intelligent?"

Those particles are not human. They are, however, some of the same particles that we are formed from. They could become an active part of intelligent life. They will do their part to fullfill the goal of the universe. They could be a part of life. They could return back to the earth. Then, it is possible for them to again become part of intelligent life and again do their part to fullfill the goal of the universe.

"I can’t deny taking offense that one feels free to proclaim knowledge, without ever objectively defining one’s terms, or providing examples. If this is the way to truth, give me fantasy any day. A shared fantasy, after all, is at least objective; a solipsistic version of truth allows no objective knowledge at all."

Ok you adopt allegiance to shared fantasy. That does fit with theoretical physics. I will keep moving through your message.

1. In the first place, scientists usually refer to "causality" rather than "cause." The reason is that cause implies an ordered historical relation between cause and effect that is irreversible. Physically, we know—because of the phenomenon of positive feedback—that this general statement is false. A common example is the feedback between microphone and amplifier; there is in principle no way to determine the cause of that disagreeable squeal that you hear. The closed loop of effects merely assumes a cause, without being burdened with the superfluous assumption that one or both of the instruments "knows everything to be done."

It makes no difference whether or not there is feedback of any kind. History has nothing to do with explaining cause. Everything that happens is caused immediately including feedback. Feedback knows what to do in either direction. What is the first cause of any effect that you wish to educate me on?

You just keep after my statement "knows everything to be done." but at some point you are going to have to explain how anything gets done.

In my last message I meant to type 'Why is there..." instead of 'Why is the...'

My too-fast typing may be a sign that I am impatient to read real answers. That is my problem, but Tom, if you please, explain what is cause? What is mass? What is electric charge? How do they do what they do? Please give a description of their nature? I am not insisting that they be human. I am asking for you to please explain the nature of your cause in either instance. Is there meaning to 'dumb' causes? What is that meaning? If there is no meaning, then how do theoretical phyhsicists define meaningfulness? I do know that meaningfulness exists. By the way, what do you think about my comments regarding f=ma? Am I being unscientific?

I'm not sure that there really are answers to all of your questions. At the end of the day, most physicists committed to these paradigms (such as Newtonian Gravity, Special Relativity, General Relativity, Optics, Electromagnetism, Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Electrodynamics, Quantum Chromodynamics, The Standard Model, Thermal Physics, Statistical Mechanics, Quantum Statistical Mechanics, The Big Bang, ...) because they seem to work.

My answers are different from everyone else's answers. Quantum numbers in unseen dimensions determine these properties of mass, charge, etc. Gravity is the strangest of all. What is the origin of mass? Why does it seem to *DEFY* quantization? Quantum mechanics is pretty fundamental, isn't it? What is the origin of gravity? I think that gravity originates on the 5-brane of Hyperspace, and that information is *SOMEHOW* transferred to our spacetime via observed geometrical effects. I think that particle properties are stored as multi-dimensional conserved quantum numbers. These fundamental particles are not *INTELLIGENT* enough to remember their properties - they simply *MUST* keep track of their conserved quantum numbers - they have *NO* *OTHER* *CHOICE*. In this manner, I think of these unseen branes as 'computer memory' that tracks these conserved quantities, and performs interactions that likewise conserve these quantum numbers.

Jesus. Do I have to reply to serial posts? So be it. I already hate myself for being goaded into this anyway.

You wrote, "You do not get to define what is scientifically objective for me."

So what? You're not talking about science anyway.

"Science is the study of the real universe and that universe gave birth to intelligent life."

And by intelligent life, you mean ...?

"You already received my definition of cause."

??? "Knows everything to be done"? Okay.

"What does it mean to say that the universe knows what to do? Then the answer is: It knows what to do for the the real reasons, whatever their true nature, that we do not yet understand because theoretical physicist do not want to look for them."

You are not goaded into anything. You may take a hike anytime you wish. But if you do not give straight answers, then you lose scientifically.

"You're anti-science. Got it. Now what?"

Whoa! Ok I understand now, you are authorized by yourself to make judgements without answering questions. Unfortunately for you I do not get discouraged by 'Jesus' type answers.

Please explain how electric charge works? How does it do what is does? Is it just magic that we are given by the mechanical fixtures defined by theoretical physics? If you prefer, then just give the scientific answer for how mass attracts mass? Does mass tells mass what to do? What does 'tells' mean? Do you have answers that do not skirt around the issue? Please get to the point. What is cause?

"My opinion: the key concept is self organization, assisted by multi-scale variety. You won't understand this and won't investigate it; however, I hardly think it matters."

I understand that you do not understand that I understand. By self organization you mean it just happens. Best wishes in your search for theoretical science. I prefer empirical science. If you ever learn what cause is, please come back and let me know because that would be real scientific learning.

Tom pretty much sums it up. James is not talking about proper science. Seriously. just because QED does not tell us how life or intelligent life emerged in the universe does not invalidate it. We should not expect elementary particles to carry "germs" of consciousness.

So the 'we' materialized: Tom pretty much did not answer scientific questions,

"Tom pretty much sums it up. James is not talking about proper science. Seriously. just because QED does not tell us how life or intelligent life emerged in the universe does not invalidate it. We should not expect elementary particles to carry "germs" of consciousness."

Seriously Dr, Crowell, I am talking about empirical knowledge. Are you saying that empirical knowlege is inferior to theoretical speculations?

"...just because QED does not tell us how life or intelligent life emerged in the universe does not invalidate it. ..."

Of course it does. It must answer the most important scientific question about the nature of the universe: What is the cause of intelligence? If it cannot do this, then it is conjecture. I do admit that it can serve as a useful instrument for solving mechanical type problems.

"...We should not expect elementary particles to carry "germs" of consciousness."

So long as 'germs' means the fundamental origin then, yes we should.

If you think that intelligence can originate from the mechanical properties of theoretical physics, then please give at least the first step in this event.

I don't want to sound like we are 'teaming up' on you. I am trying to give partial answers to questions that have unsatisfactory answers.

Earlier I talked about conserved quantum numbers being the method that fundamental particles 'remember' their quantum numbers. This implies determinism, and an absence of free will. As a Southern Baptist myself, I am aware of the theological debates regarding free will versus determinism. In my opinion, Sin and Grace must be personal choices (Free Will) or the Crucifiction and Resurrection of Christ is unnecessary and in vain. I am not willing to accept this idea, therefore I suggest that determinism rules fundamental particles via conserved quantum numbers, but we have an emmergence of 'free will' and 'self' due to defects in the manner in which those quantum numbers are conserved. Perhaps some randomness is introduced by quantum mechanical probabilities or measurement error (Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) or thermal/statistical fluctuations. However it happens, self/intelligence/soul/consciousness/the dream AND FREE WILL emmerges from an apparently deterministic system. Weird huh? Did we just nuke QED or Psychology?

Consciousness is not my bailiwick, so I leave the problem of how consciousness emerged to others --- probably later in this century. I should think finding out the origin of life, which is not an aspect of evolution which presupposes life (eukaryotic life at that), needs to be worked out first. Maybe there are pre-biotic signatures on Mars which could be found by sufficiently sophisticated robotic probes. But that lack of knowledge does not somehow invalidate physics, any more than pre-Darwinian science invalidated Newtonian physics because the relatedness of life had not been figured out.

The debate on whether consciousness is merely particle-mechanic with free-will OR intelligence and free will have a "special" comes down right on what we know about the electron. You see, the electron is a quantum particle. That means that it behaves quantumly, not classically. That means that we can never know which eigenstate it will choose. We have no idea if it chooses at random or if there exists some other "special" reality that physicists cannot gain access to.

That is why I call electrons the lowest level of intelligence, which is total stupidity. They can't make rational judgements because they have no memory or reasoning. However, they do have free-will. More accurately, we have no knowledge of anything that tells them which eigenstate to pick.

I think Gell-Mann's conjecture is the rational model -- consciousness exists on a continuum from quarks to jaguars.

No external cause is necessary. James's assertion about a hierarchy of intelligence is demonstrably false.

When we actually undertake to define "consciousness," "intelligence" and even "life" -- we don't find anything at the center of the onion. The dynamic relations among self organized elements, combined with feedback effect, provide everything we require to outline the behavior of what we call conscious, intelligent life. A priori assumptions of higher intelligence imparting a cause are superfluous.

Physics, and in fact science itself, fall short of ever being able to measure or validate everything that exists. FOUNDATIONALLY and FUNDAMENTALLY, physics cannot destroy God or the soul because it cannot fully account for the quantum nature of the electron. Physics models cannot pinch off or exclude the soul from the physical body because of the Uncertainty Principle.

The brain operates of the edge of chaos theory. If ALL inputs are accounted for, then the system (consciousness) is deterministic, albeit complicated. However, there are about 10^23 electrons in the brain that can influence consciousness. Since every one of those is subject to the Uncertainty principle, then ALL inputs cannot be accounted for.

Quantum mechanics is a major fundamental subject in physics that is all about how we cannot predict exact locations and momentum of electrons. If science can't predict it, does that mean that it fundamentally cannot be predicted by anyone or anything? Nobody knows.

If anything could exist within this region of uncertainty, then it might be detectable by a human brain and nervous system. If people have been experiencing ghosts, spirits, and God(s) for as long as their have been human beings to talk about it. Using Occam's razor, is it all just hopefulness or survival instinct? Is it possible that someone's nervous system could be stimulated by electric field disturbances in the Uncertain nature of physics?

It can't be determined. Therefore, physicists and the physics community only have opinions about the subject. If a physicist says that he knows that God doesn't exist, he is lying.

What do you think about the interpretation that electrons have freewill by virtue of their ability to choose which eigenstate they will pick? Physicists cannot discern any phenomena that makes the electron (or photon) choose its eigenstate. So the electron becomes a unit of free will.

Consciousness migth have some element of Godel's thoerem to it, at least as some finite cut-off approximation. We might not then be able to define consciousness because that requires getting a Godel loop to cut itself --- so to speak. I have indicated that at the Planck scale it is possible there is nothing but self-referential chaos, where structure at larger scalse exist ultimately as accidents. This is what might be called a multiverse level V, or something more fundamental than Tegmark's ideas. This is similar to Chaitan's idea with mathematics. So this Planck scale self-referential vacuum or "sea" is then similar to consciousness if Godel's thoerem is somehow its basis. It is also something one might be tempted to call God --- though a very different idea of God than what religion portrays.

I don't know if science will ever plumb those depths in any meaningful way. Maybe we will get some idea of what consciousness is by mid 21st century. I can't say whether we will get that deep into our understanding on the cosmological level.

By asking this question, I am robbing the skeptics and athiests of their certainty that God does not exist. My personal experiences of God are enough to know/believe that God might not be so similar to that which is portrayed by religion. Then again, there is one Christian I know who suggested that I had experiences with something that was not the Christian God. I will only say that my intentions are to be helpful and good.

Don't believe if you don't want to.

Believe if you do want to.

But science won't give you knowledge in either direction. That statement is not a euphemism. The Uncertainty Principle exposes every one of the electrons in our brain and nervous system to an "ocean" of mystery about what the universe really is. So I choose to believe in God, it works for me.

Do electrons have free will? Here is a better question: can electrons conduct free will? Can electrons conduct signals of any kind between the physical universe and some ghostly universe? It is impossible to dismiss the possibility.

Did I lead us off topic? If so, then I apologize. James was worrying about the origin of intelligence. I am also interested in the origin of self and free will. Although electrons are 'intelligent' enough to remember their properties/quantum numbers, I'm not sure that I would actually attribute properties of intelligence or free will on them, although random factors may be introduced through quantum and/or thermal effects. As such, I consider these properties of self/intelligence/ free will to be emergent properties. However, I think we have strayed closer to Metaphysics (something that may never be proven or disproven - It isn't right, it isn't even wrong!), and farther from Physics.

Jason - I have also had a 'Christian' experience, and I know others who have had 'Christian' or 'demonic' experiences. Among my friends, the number of these incidents is similar to the number of 'alien' encounters. Perhaps, Georgina is correct and these are bad dreams... If it was a dream, it was, by far, the weirdest dream I have ever had. Some day I may share experiences with you via e-mail, but I would not want something as personal as that event to get on a blog.

I guess I'm partly to blame for getting us off topic, too. I was trying to argue that brain activity and the nervous system fundamentally depend upon electrons and electric fields, from an electro-chemical point of view, as well as a nerve fiber/voltage point of view.

If you all insist that quantum uncertainty is pure absolute randomness that cannot be used by anything supernatural, paranormal, etc., then you fail to see make the connection. As a result, then we are all biomechanical machines without a soul. We have no soul because there is no connection that is possible to a soul or anything that exists beyond this world. I look at the electron and the Uncertainty Principle and I see a clear connection.

Perhaps the paranormal is not a bunch of phony crap. Perhaps bad dreams and sleep paralysis are phony answers. Why is it that we can accept the idea of virtual photons, but the idea that grandma whose been dead for ten years can float by as a spirit and trigger a memory and a feeling of connection is somehow an overactive imagination?

Let me remind you again. The electrons of our nervous system are literally exposed to the Uncertainty principle. If a ghost floats by a coffee cup, the electrons of the coffee cup might interact with it, but the coffee cup doesn't have a nervous system or a brain to be able to say, "Hey, grandma just floated by!"

Occam's razor! Which makes more sense? Are human beings just inherently ignorant little biomachines with imagination and fantasies about God, spirits, demons, dead relatives OR these things exist as virtual manifestations of the quantum universe. Occam's razor, which is it?

"...I suggest that determinism rules fundamental particles via conserved quantum numbers, but we have an emmergence of 'free will' and 'self' due to defects in the manner in which those quantum numbers are conserved. Perhaps some randomness is introduced by quantum mechanical probabilities or measurement error (Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) or thermal/statistical fluctuations. However it happens, self/intelligence/soul/consciousness/the dream AND FREE WILL emmerges from an apparently deterministic system. ..."

I am interested in what you and other physicists think about the existence of life, intelligence and free will.

My website is a lengthy examination of how free will might arise. That is its main purpose. My last essay sums up my view on the origin of free will. What makes it relevent for discussion in a physics forum is that accounting for free will is what required a review and revision of the fundamentals of physics theory. I will write something short to give my viewpoint in a message to be posted here.

Although I agree that topics such as intelligence/ self/ free will/ spirit/ soul/ consciousness are interesting, they really have nothing to do with Garrett Lisi's E8 Theory, nor would most physicists even consider these issues relevant to Physics - unless we could truly relate these concepts to observable Quantum Hyperspace Physics. We casually use Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, but what is its true origin? Why do we call it a 'Principle' rather than a 'Theory'? And I am listening to the E-Infinity people. I think their idea is slightly defective, but close. My business and personal life has been busy for the past month (daughter's birthday, inventory, end of fiscal year) and the next couple of weeks appear to be very busy as well (personal taxes, energy-star rebates). Perhaps I can start getting caught up with my reading and my ideas in May. Until then, I'd rather not disclose anything new.

Well, at least we've finally gotten to the admission that we've not been talking about science in these dozens of posts.

Free will? Another superfluous assumption to physical science. If the origin of free will were entangled with the origin of matter, there would be no avoiding a supernatural cause for matter, since free will -- as a primary principle -- cannot be an emergent property of self organized physical systems. The closest we can come is in the controlling effects of negative feedback imposed on the system by cooperating subsystems.

Of course, this supernatural origin has been James's underlying assumption all along. I've simply been trying to get him to admit it.

There is so little room for a creator god in the physics we know that the probability is practically zero. So naturally, James sets about to write some physics of his own.

Yes, we have finally gotten down to the issue. Science cannot incorporate all elements of reality. Quantum mechanics and the Uncertainty Principle are proof that science falls short of being able to fully and completely account for everything in the physical universe. If the totality of the universe was classical and predictable, physics would be able to make that claim.

For five hundred years, science has tried to rid God from the universe. Physics has metaphorically closed almost every door in the universe, except one. The uncertainty of quantum particles. It is the back door. It is the unavoidable mystery.

"...Of course, this supernatural origin has been James's underlying assumption all along. I've simply been trying to get him to admit it. ..."

Tom you understand nothing yet about my views. You are too blinded by your own. Intelligence is not supernatural. It is a real property of the universe. It is the most primary property. Everything that you think you know about the universe results from your interpretation of information. That information is always experienced locally. There is no distance nor continuity in your reception of that data. You add those things when your mind draws the picture for you. If information and intelligence were the only two things that existed, we would not be able to tell the difference from the universe we see.

There is nothing for me to admit to you. You see nothing clearly yet. We can skip the intelligence talk; however, your universe has no intelligence in it and is incapable of causing it. You do not get intelligence for free just by declaring that it happened. Of course it happened. The fact that it exists is evidence that you, through your scientific perspective, do not yet understand the nature of the universe. With regard to supernatural, your theoretical physics contains mostly unnatural properties. They are invented. They can be dropped and science would be better for it.

You talk much about "intelligence" without ever offering an objective definition. You simply declare by fiat that intelligence is primary to the universe. Therefore, if the origin of intelligence is axiomatic, it is endowed supernaturally, if you also have to insist that "cause" is primary. Pick your poison: intelligence or cause; either intelligence causes cause or cause causes intelligence. Like all religious writings, yours are circular and nonanalytical: "Assume that the universe is intelligent, and all else follows."

You're selling. I'm not buying.

The simple fact of adaptation-- the empirical fact, that term that you also abuse so often -- defines all that we yet know about intelligence in the self organized universe. Complex adaptive systems lie at the further end of a continuum of intelligence.

"You talk much about "intelligence" without ever offering an objective definition. ..."

Intelligence is the ability to discern meaning from information.

"...You simply declare by fiat that intelligence is primary to the universe. ...

You ought to know about declaring by fiat, that is your most prominent type of declaration. It just so happens that I am not vulnerable to grand pronouncements that have no scientific substance. By the way, Everything that you think you know about the universe is the result of your intelligence reaching conclusions about information.

"...Therefore, if the origin of intelligence is axiomatic, it is endowed supernaturally, ..."

NO! If intellligence is primary then it is primary. That is a scientific fact. Please explain why the existence of intelligence is supernatural? Presumably, you think it is supernatural, because the real universe is provably dumb. I pointed out to you that your guesses about the universe being dumb and mechanical are supernatural. Now I will correct myself, they are sub-natural. They are man(or woman)made out of mental-plastic.

"...if you also have to insist that "cause" is primary. Pick your poison: intelligence or cause; either intelligence causes cause or cause causes intelligence. ..."

The short answer to this is easy. No one knows what cause is, including you. You cannot say, except by declaring by fiat that your dumb universe is the source of our intelligent universe. Wait a minute, I almost missed the opportunity to point out quite clearly that you are insisting that cause is dumb. I have already indicated to you that your causes are unnatural and should and hopefully will be discarded for the sake of science.

"...Like all religious writings, yours are circular and nonanalytical: "Assume that the universe is intelligent, and all else follows."

And, declare that the universe is dumb and only mechanical dumbness follows. Unfortunately for your argument I do not have a religion. I am analyzing, by scientific means, this universe. Not your universe. Yours consists of objects bumping around into each other. Maybe connecting together, but for no intelligent purpose and for no intelligent result.

"...The simple fact of adaptation-- ..."

Adaptation occurs by accepting or destroying designs of life after those designs have occurred by means that have nothing to do with environment.

"..the empirical fact, that term that you also abuse so often..."

Or, perhaps that you are abusing so often.

"...-- defines all that we yet know about intelligence in the self organized universe. ..."

Self-organized! In other words local magic that occurs for no previous purpose. You still do not reocgnize that dumbnes cannot generate intelligence. Even lower intelligence cannot give rise to higher intelligence. Illogic cannot produce logic.

"...Complex adaptive systems lie at the further end of a continuum of intelligence. ..."

Another snow job here. You want to explain how any system, adaptive or otherwise, acquires intelligence? What is the nearer end of the continuum of intelligence?

"Extra dimensions do have an objective construction, from first principles of geometry."

If your point is that the physics theories, that go beyond the number of dimensions that we observe in our universe, are mathematically sound. I agree. Unfortunately, being mathematically sound is not validation of being real. It depends upon what it is that you are counting. Are you counting the effects of real properties? I think that 'real' means that those properties actually belong to the observable universe. If not, well then, what is your limit to adding on imaginary properties? Is there any mathematical limit to the support that the principles of geometry will lend to the advancement of imaginative properties? My point is that the principles of geometry do not pertain truthwise to the properties you invent and use genometry on. Geometry is a mathematical tool. Mathematics is a tool for the mechanical interpretation of the universe. Since the universe is clearly not mechanical, meaning really dumb, the mathematics can take you only as far as a cosmic mechanic wants to go.

You say that the universe is "...clearly not mechanical." In fact, it clearly is. Whatever you take as the basis for your claim, is certainly not from science.

From classical mechanics to statistical mechanics to quantum mechanics, we are adept at modeling phenomena that correspond to real measurements in the real world.

No, our models don't impart meaning. We infer meaning from them. That doesn't imply, however, that you may change the models so that they fit whatever meaning you imagine to be true a priori, simply because you personally believe that your meaning supersedes physics.

Science allows us to constrain meaning so that we may objectively comprehend our universe. "As Einstein said, the most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible." You can be sure that he meant objectively comprehensible, because Einstein had contempt for what he called "mere personal belief."

You write, " ...Everything that you think you know about the universe is the result of your intelligence reaching conclusions about information."

And you mean by "information ..."?

Your assertions that "intelligence does not come from dumbness" is absolutely falsified in principle and empirically, by self assembly, self organization, self organized criticality, evolution and more.

You are no empiricist, James.

Of course, you don't actually give an objective definition of intelligence, so you can lend it any meaning you wish to support your personal beliefs; there is nothing in your philosophy to differentiate intelligence from God. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It just isn't science.

You bet you do. You infer meaning from symbols. See my previous message.

"...That doesn't imply, however, that you may change the models so that they fit whatever meaning you imagine to be true a priori, simply because you personally believe that your meaning supersedes physics. ..."

I don't change models. I throw them out based upon their unworthiness. This a prior remark that keeps arising applies to you also. In other words, you ideas about cause are artificial. You simply prefer them because they arfe mechanical. And, because they are mechanical, they are well suited to fit mathematical equations. So, if mathematics is your guide, then you cannot arise above the level of cosmic mechanic.

"...Science allows us to constrain meaning so that we may objectively comprehend our universe. ..."

Your science constrains meaning to the point where only meaningless mechanical causes and effects can occur.

"As Einstein said, the most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible." You can be sure that he meant objectively comprehensible, because Einstein had contempt for what he called "mere personal belief."

He ought to know. Many of his remarks were self serving to his own personal beliefs. His theories are wrong. The patterns of empirical data upon which they are based are correct. The clue that he forced unreality upon that data is that he required the use of transform equations. If he had a real theory with real logical meaing, then he could have derived it step by step up from the fundamentals. Transform equations may apply to real situations; however, they force a mathematical relationship between what we see and what we think, whether or not what we think is real. In other words, transform equations are risky mathematics. Einstein should have moved to get rid of them as soon as possible. I say he did not because he could not. He could not because he believed foremost in his theories and his theories did not allow for it. That is an easy trap for any of us to fall into.

"You write, " ...Everything that you think you know about the universe is the result of your intelligence reaching conclusions about information." ...

...And you mean by "information ..."?"

Photons.

"...Your assertions that "intelligence does not come from dumbness" is absolutely falsified in principle and empirically, by self assembly, self organization, self organized criticality, evolution and more. ..."

Lets get this straight. You define the universe as being dumb. Then you recognize that the universe gave birth to intelligent life. Therefore, you conclude that dumbness gives rise to intelligent life. There is another possibly explanation. It is that your dumb interpretation is wrong. I will repeat then that dumbness cannot give rise to intelligence. Even lower intelligence cannot give rise to higher intelligence. Physicists do not get the property of intelligence for free. That is why they struggle to find it in the weirdness of their unexplanable theoretical properties of the unvirse.

During an MRI I had a while back, I got to experience the "consciousness" of the magnetic fields that were passing through my brain. Yes, I know this kind of talk is not a way to build credibility, but the experience was still interesting.

The magnetic fields, as an intelligence, were very quick and methodical servants to their masters (the technicians). They had no free will, but they also didn't have any concept of desiring free will, or desiring anything. This consciousness was simply content to perform its work.

I think the point of this story would be that there probably is a part of the brain that can distinguish the subtle signals of a magnetic field, and map them to brain language in the form of personality traits and the recognition of intent.

""James, If photons are identical to information, then information isn't physical, because photons are massless.""

"Once again, your claim to be an empiricist is dashed against a cold fact, and nothing you say to follow can be consistently true."

"...nothing you say to follow can be consistently true."

Photons are not physical? What are they supernatural? I know more about mass than do you. You see, I don't carry along with me the errors of early physics theory. Anyway, it sounds like you would prefer to declare victory and end our discussion. Is this a correct interpetation of your message?

"Photons are massless" and therefore "not physical". Their rest mass is zero, but their relativistic mass is non-zero. What about mass-energy equivalence? What about the confinement of photons by Black Holes? I beg to differ. Thanks to the properties of light, electromagnetic waves and second quantization, photons seem as real to me as anything else. Maybe I can't throw a rock of photons at you, but I could blast you with a laser... Which would hurt the most?

I do agree with Tom that politics and religion should have nothing to do with physics, and realize that I am probably in the minority as a conservative Christian. I don't force those views on anyone else, and am not offended by counter views. As an American, I believe in freedom of speech, and enjoy conversing with all of you interesting people.

Ray, Photons are massless, but they are physical. Also the invariant interval in momentum-energy is m^2 = E^2 - p^2 (c = 1), which is the invariant. So if m = 0 in one frame it is the same in all frames. A two state system

|Ψ> = 1/sqrt{2}(|0> + e^{iθ}|1>)

is a perfect q-bit system, whether it pertains to a zero/one photon state or the occupation state of a fermion (0 or 1).

Are you reading anything I said? The list included evolution, chemical self assembly, self organization, self organized criticality. You want book references--are you entirely innocent of any of this research?

Of course they are. I don't know if James doesn't actually understand what I write, or if he is deliberately building straw men.

In any case, James gaves his definition of "information" as "photons." I said that if information and photons were identical, information could not be given a physical definition. That is simply a true statement. In the contemporary information-theoretic world, information is modeled on Shannon's communication theory, whose mathematics is identical to thermodynamic entropy.

Computer science has helped us a great deal toward understanding the behavior of information strings, and the interaction between program and substrate. I am into the first chapter of Vlatko Vedral's newly published book, Decoding Reality: the universe as quantum information. That's how information is ttreated in the physical world; if James wants to claim to be an empiricist, he has to live with it.

I apologize for the typo. I meant to say "Photons are massless and therefore not physical?" (I accidentally left off the question mark.) I was responding to this strange conversation between James and Tom. It sounded as if James was trying to draw an analogy between information and photons, and Tom was trying to shoot that analogy down by calling photons non-physical. I say that photons are physical, and my examples are mass-energy equivalence, 2nd quantization, and supersymmetry.

The universe gave birth to intelligent life. The properties that caused this to occur must have existed from the beginning of the universe in potential form. All events that will ever occur in the universe must be provided for in the original properties of the universe. All events means both mechanical and intelligent activity. Nothing that is not provided for from the...

The universe gave birth to intelligent life. The properties that caused this to occur must have existed from the beginning of the universe in potential form. All events that will ever occur in the universe must be provided for in the original properties of the universe. All events means both mechanical and intelligent activity. Nothing that is not provided for from the beginning can later develop.

It seems to me that it is mostly the case today, that it is not acceptable science to speak about intelligence having existed at the beginning of the universe, even in potential form. Rather, it had to have resulted from inanimate, purposeless, mechanical properties. It seems clear to me that this is impossible. But it also appears to be a firmly entrenched view. It appears to me that ideology plays a major role in that choice of view. Still, it is clear that we cannot show something of substance and say that it is fundamental intelligence.

We think that we do have objects of substance that prove our theoretical physics interpretations about fundamental, mechanical type properties. I think that this is a matter of opinion. All of these type answers are given to us by our own intelligence. Our full potential for understanding the operation of the universe is fully contained within our intelligence. The photons that are communicating to us do not bring intelligence with them. They are signs indicating to us that something changed.

We must formulate within our minds what change or changes might have occurred and select conclusions that make the most sense to us. That sense did not come to us from the outside world. Only photons came forward to communicate with us. The point is that everything that we could possibly conclude about meaning must already be available to us within ourselves before the signs arrive.

Theoretical physics does not deal with intelligence, even thought it stumbles around it trying to find ways to infer its existence from physics properties. It seems to me that the path to take is not to debate the nature of intelligence. It is clear that it exists. It is clear that there must be a cause for it. It is also clear that no one knows what cause is, whether defined mechanically or intelligently. I go so far as to say that the all conclusions by theoretical physicists about the nature of cause are not represented, in the real universe, by real causes.

I think than that the best approach to showing the lack of relevance of theoretical physics to intelligence is to first show that theoretical physics is not the stringent science that it appears to be. Correcting theoretical physics may allow for a later discussion of the evolution of intelligent life. The first challenge is to replace the disunity of current theoretical physics with theory, it can be mechanical, that demonstrates continuous unity right from its founding properties. We need to show that a single fundamental cause exists for all effects instead of inventing several theoretical causes. Those inventions are useful to us, but in the long run they are a great impediment to understanding the nature of the universe.

I gave, what I believe to be the first step in the process of bringing fundamental unity to theoretical physics. That step was my challenging the original interpretation of mass as a unique, indefinable property requiring its own unique indefinable units of measurement. That step is only the beginning of a great many changes that follow. If there is no interest in pursuing this line of thought, then I will return to my work of completing the development of this new theoretical approach. For years now, it has been apparent that this is the kind of work that must by done by an individual.

I have no interest in going in logical circles that rely upon unexplainable ideas and words that get traded off for other words. I also have no interest in trying to work with properties that I think are made necessary only because of earlier errors in theoretical physics. The need for such properties is a sign. It is a sign that we need to review our work. It isn't only photons that are mere signs. It is also our words. If the words cannot direct us to find meaning within ourselves, then they are only meaningless sounds and symbols. Finding scientific meaning means finding those ideas that refer correctly, and hopefully simply, to the properties of this universe.

If you think that the universe has intelligence, physics can't disprove that possibility. Real photons transmit real information and virtual photons transmit virtual information. But physics can't use its measurement equipment to explore the virtual universe. To do that, you need some kind of electrical system that can detect whatever you define to be intelligence.

"If you think that the universe has intelligence, physics can't disprove that possibility. Real photons transmit real information and virtual photons transmit virtual information. But physics can't use its measurement equipment to explore the virtual universe. To do that, you need some kind of electrical system that can detect whatever you define to be intelligence."

Are you saying that intelligence is virtual as opposed to real? And, because of that intelligence must have only to do with a virtual universe? I do not agree with that. I was speaking about real photons interacting with our real particles. Those real photons need our real particles to decipher possible patterns discerned from the photon storm, attach meaning to those patterns, choose the most important patterns, and, create an image of the outside world best fitted to those patterns.

I was raised as a Theosophist and higher spiritualism; then later trained in physics. Reconciling those two points of view is very difficult. I believe in God; the Theosophist definition. I believe that we have a soul. I believe that when we die, our bodies fall away; but some part of our personality and free will survives. Science has tried to remove all of such ideas for 500 years, and has failed to do so because of the uncertainty principle. If you've ever had an encounter with a spirit, something that has changed your life, there is a good chance that it was an intelligent entity, with free will, that can produce effects at the quantum level, sufficient to be able to produce his/her/it's thoughts using your brain and nervous system.

I think George Carlin got some religion issues a bit nailed down. For his take on the 10 commandments you can hear him here and see a shortened version of this with him on stage here.

@T H Ray: Basically quantum information is a convex function(al) of the quantum states or the density matrix. The von Neumann theory pretty clearly connects quantum information with some Boltzmann and Shannon results in classical statistical mechanics and information theory.

I do not see dualism in the nature of the universe. I think that any problem with reconciling theoretical physics and intelligence lies with the theories of theoretical physics. I am certain that free will exists. I see the universe as being deterministic, yet, through its real physical properties, it gives us an ability that very closely approximates that which we call free will. My repeated reference to our interpretation of photon information points to this conclusion. The seeds for learning about free will are there in that act.

You said,"I do not see dualism in the nature of the universe." I am surprised! I see nothing but dualism. I see compassion and intelligence at odds constantly. I see self advancement versus selflessness everywhere. Particle versus wave. bosons versus fermions. Men/women. Liberals and conservatives. Good versus evil. AC/DC... The list of dualities goes on forever. Life and death. Real and virtual. Logic and creativity. The interplay of opposites effects everything. Determinism versus free will. Both of these are true.

Personally, I think that physics is very accurate in its ability to measure things that are measurable. Some things exist but are not measurable. Believe me, I would love to make all of the dualities go away, but I don't want to lose my grip on reality.

"...So if you don't see duality, maybe your not seeking the Truth. ...

Nice succinct refutation. Funny thing is that others might very well say something analogous for very different reasons. Truth does seem to be the baromometer. You have found satisfaction in your truth. I think that is great. I do have work of my own to do that differs somewhat from yours. Best wishes to you.

Not so fast! You just drop a little "tidbit" like that, at me? Since when is Truth about satisfaction??? If you feel like you have a Truth that is better than mine, then please, go ahead and beat me over the head with it. Truth is a duality of another kind. There is the truth that pleases us, inspires us. Then, there is the truth that obligates us. Where exactly is the "power" that is supposed to come from knowing the Truth? I have seen and felt the power of God to move men and women to take action. I have also seen and felt the temptation of the dark side. Immortality might yet be possible, but I don't understand how bliss can be achieved when knowledge of the suffering of others is all around us.

You just come here and say, "hope you find your truth satisfying. I'm busy now. Ta ta..." You think you know the TRUTH!!!??? I have been battering the hallowed halls of this physics forum for over a year now. Ask any physicist, and he will say that the prospects for solving any real human problems are unlikely; that the suffering will continue indefinitely, until death or extinction occurs. I have worked very hard to point out possibilities for new physics that may have been overlooked. I have already struck down two wrong assumptions that the physics community still embraces. First, space-time is not a time machine; what is done, is done, forever. Second, the occult is allowed to exist because quantum mechanics adds a built in Uncertainty to all measurements.

So James, run along now. You have work to do. Go find some satisfaction in whatever truth you hold dear.

"...You think you know the TRUTH!!!??? I have been battering the hallowed halls of this physics forum for over a year now. ..."

I do not believe in theoretical physics. I do not believe in dualism. I see it as entirely unnecessary and misleading. I did not feel like debating against spiritualism or anything else other than theoretical physics. Even in that case, I think my time is best spent in challenging the fundamentals. That is probably simplistic compared to what you pursue. I think that your time would be better spent in winning points against those where the points would count for something. For example, I am not a theoretical physicist.

Perhaps I misunderstood. If your case is that theoretical physics is correct, and, that the universe contains mystical properties at a level beyond our reach, then, what difference does it make what I think? I said I do not believe that dualism is necessary. Dualism to me is the practice of separating mechanical aspects of the operation of the universe from intelligent aspects of the universe. Where is the justification for that practice? Is it because you believe in theoretical physics?

Do you believe in both mechanical theory and spiritualism? If you do, then I say best wishes to you in your efforts to promote that view. I am not a proponent of that view. I argue in defense of a single, unified universe. Hyper this and hyper that do not interest me. I think we should learn correctly about this universe first, before arguing over other possible universes. I am not refuting your viewpoint. I just am not pursuing that line of inquiry. Adding exclamation and question punctuation is not sufficient to change that.

I'm actually not a theoretical physicist. It's just a fun hobby. There was a time long ago when I was a Liberal. I felt the world through my heart and was happy; I knew then that the evil in the world was caused by conservatives. But I wanted to understand why conservatives thought the way they thought. It was like eating fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. In doing so, I discovered Duality. I couldn't be happy anymore because the Liberal arguments that I believed in, had logical problems with them. It grew worse over the years as I watched the ideas of hope that I once believed, get shredded by the How's and Why's of reality.

As for theoretical physics, it's fun to try to figure out what the universe is up to. When you say, "I think we should learn correctly about this universe first,..." I don't know what we could change to correct our view now, other than the views I've shared. The universe obeys conservation of energy; this is why the equations work so well. They really need to add causality; they're already starting to do that.

But a single, unified universe? I seriously doubt that gravity and GR will ever be unified.

"There was a time long ago when I was a Liberal. I felt the world through my heart and was happy; I knew then that the evil in the world was caused by conservatives. ..."

Well that is politics in a science forum. However, I will respond to it as I see fit. Some of us who attended college learn, somewhat later, more than what college had to offer. We find out that political views and political facts presented by many college professors are distorted views that represent their resentment for not being recognized and called upon by leaders of nations and the world for enlightenment; but, instead they find themselves repeatedly subjected to the views and actions of others who may be no more qualified, in their view, than having won elections to political office. It is elitism, and, it can be destructive.

"...As for theoretical physics, it's fun to try to figure out what the universe is up to. When you say, "I think we should learn correctly about this universe first,..." I don't know what we could change to correct our view now, other than the views I've shared. The universe obeys conservation of energy; this is why the equations work so well. They really need to add causality; they're already starting to do that. ..."

All competent theoretical physicists would ensure that their equations work well. That is not the problem. It is their practice of identifying parts of those equations as representing causes that causes their theories to be artificial. No one knows what cause is. Causes are only represented in any physics equation by the equals sign. That is my opinion. By the way, if you would like to explain something fundamental that is beyond my reproach, then tell me please what is the nature of the energy that is conserved?

One last point. Theoretical physicists are adding only theoretical causality. Theory is not empirical knowledge.

"...But a single, unified universe? I seriously doubt that gravity and GR will ever be unified. '

Since GR is supposed to explain gravity, would you please be more specific about what you mean by: "...I seriously doubt that gravity and GR will ever be unified."

It is the case that I am certain that relativity theory, whether special or general, is clearly wrong. What is it that you are saying?

I meant to say that gravity and Quantum Mechanics will never be unified. They are completely different kinds of phenomena.

The equations appear to be upheld by conservation laws. Energy is accounted for, always. You can't fool the universe by trying to more energy then is available. I look at these equations, and I think of my budget. There is only so much money. If I spend it, the money has to come from somewhere. The bankers most certainly don't forget.

By causality, I mean that time travel is impossible. You can't get the correct lottery numbers before they are generated, and you can't go back and kill Hitler. That's what I mean by causality.

In an earlier entry, I asked: what causes gravity? I still think the question deserves an answer.

But I disagree with you about Relativity. I think it's correct; but the physics community, and most people, still look at it and think it's a time machine. But it's not. Information is transmitted at the speed of light. If light has to go up or down an energy hill, the frequency will red shift or blue shift. This will give the appearance of clocks running slower than they should.

"The equations appear to be upheld by conservation laws. Energy is accounted for, always. You can't fool the universe by trying to more energy then is available. I look at these equations, and I think of my budget. There is only so much money. If I spend it, the money has to come from somewhere. The bankers most certainly don't forget. ..."

Except that I asked about the nature of energy?

"...By causality, I mean that time travel is impossible. ..."

I am certain that that is correct; however, no causality is explained by theoretical physics. No one knows what cause is.

"...In an earlier entry, I asked: what causes gravity? I still think the question deserves an answer. ..."

Sorry for not addressing that. However, since the answer would be contradictory to current fundamental theoretical physics, I do not know how to answer you in a short message. It required almost all of my website to arrive at that explanation.

"...But I disagree with you about Relativity. I think it's correct; but the physics community, and most people, still look at it and think it's a time machine. But it's not. Information is transmitted at the speed of light. If light has to go up or down an energy hill, the frequency will red shift or blue shift. This will give the appearance of clocks running slower than they should."

I do not see the energy hill until you explain what the nature of energy is. Do you think that energy is a unique, fundamental, physical substance? I have no problem expressing my view that whether or not clocks run faster or slower has no relevance to the property of time. Clocks only tell us about the rate of activity of physical events. Time is not those physical events. It is not a substance. It is not available for us to capture and contain for the purpose of experimentation. Neither is space.

I say that relativity theory is clearly wrong. Clearly means that relativity theory can, relatively easily, be replaced with more sensible views of space and time. My first essay entry into FQXi.org's first essay contest addresses my belief that time is absolute. My ten page essay is a contracted, out of context, sample of that view. I can't easily support my views in the blog's and forum's settings. They do not lend themselves to lengthy answers. Even the challenge of a ten page essays is restrictive for that purpose. However, I am patient and look forward to the next essay contest.

What is the nature of energy? Energy makes things happen, makes things manifest. If money could hold its value perfectly, then energy would be like money. Energy manifests as light, particles, and fields.

Gravity fields serve as a potential energy hill. From the surface of the earth, if you shine a laser into space, those photons will travel up the potential energy hill until they escape the gravity field completely. The energy necessary to escape the gravity field was taken from the photons energy E=hf. Since the photons energy got smaller, but Planck constant doesn't change, so the frequency gets smaller. Smaller frequency gives the appearance of slower clocks. Therefore, from a point of view far from the gravity field of earth, light, and therefore activity, will appear to be a little slower.

Time actually runs as fast as the speed of light. If the speed of light is doubled, then energy expresses itself with 1/4 the mass. Gravitational acceleration is quadrupled. Everything is lighter and moves faster.

If you believe that time is absolute, that there is only one universal clock, then you must also believe that the speed of light is infinite. An infinite speed of light means that information can reach every point in space, as soon as it is generated. This is the only way that an absolute clock is possible.

So why would Einstein and the others make up such a strange and difficult law of physics, when Newtonian mechanics still worked?

Re quantum information. Yes, that's the point I was trying to make--physical information theory as opposed to a language-theoretic based definition of information which James seemed to be conflating with physics.

Quantum information, to me, means 33% of PsiA + 33%PsiB + 33%PsiC; roll the dice. In other words, it's all about probabilities, how much of quantum system A is included in quantum system B,... At the risk of sounding silly, quantum information is like a dice game.

Energy is both a fundamentally unique substance and a fundamentally unique cause?

"If you believe that time is absolute, that there is only one universal clock, then you must also believe that the speed of light is infinite. ..."

I say that time is absolute. I accept that the speed of light always measures locally as C. I find that these two statements are not incompatible. The rates of physical activity are not absolute.

"...An infinite speed of light means that information can reach every point in space, as soon as it is generated. This is the only way that an absolute clock is possible."

This is an interesting point. The speed of light is not infinite; however, the universe is orderly which suggests that whatever is keeping it orderly does reach everywhere instantaneously.

"...So why would Einstein and the others make up such a strange and difficult law of physics, when Newtonian mechanics still worked?"

There were effects that showed that Newton's equations did not hold under some circumstances. Einstein's theory was able to predict those odd effects. The best theory is the one that best models the patterns observed in empirical evidence. I have no quarrel with that practice. However, it is possible for equations that are properly fitted to those patterns to also be theoretically misinterpreted. It is the practice of theoretical interpretation that is prone to error. Consider your above statement about energy. If energy has substance and is a cause; what is the empirical basis for those interpretations?

The intelligence seems a result of evolution where the biological mass and the volume of the hemispheroids are correlated, after the system continues to polarise the informations due to the environment.

The conscious appears evidently like the universality.

The mass thus the gravity is the main cause and the main force of this universal equation.

Newton understood what is the attraction of a mass.

The system polarises thus sorts and synchronizes the fractal of light with its intrinsic gravitational codes.

An important point is this one ,the volumes of the spheres do not change in my line of reasoning, only the density thus the velocity of rotation, there we see an increase of mass correlated with an increase of "sorted informations".

The gravity evolves , the differents results of evolution are intelligence, consciousness, rationality,harmonisation of all mass systems.

In fact it exists only the gravity , after it's a question of steps towards Planck scale simply.

Now dear James , you speak about an essential .

I consider the intelligence so young just because the universal complemenatrity is not a reality.In fact it exists our intelligence like human, unique and the possible Earthian human intelligence in its whole.

The ideas of several are better than the ideas of one , but of course the rationality must be an evidence for the complementarity of the intelligences .

In this line of reasoning we can see an increase of mass if the complemenatrity is made between them.The informations are correlated evidently.

The encoding is fascinating,in our brain and in our adn.

Thanks to all for your discussions, relevants dear James all that relevants.

"I say that time is absolute. I accept that the speed of light always measures locally as C. I find that these two statements are not incompatible. The rates of physical activity are not absolute. "

When you say "absolute time", you must mean that there is one clock for the whole universe. However there are experiments with airplanes and atomic clocks; which run at a different rate then the one on the ground. There are also cosmic rays that strike the atmosphere and generate muons. Muons have a short half life. When the travel at .999c, they should only penetrate about 600m. But the have been detected much closer to the surface; indicating that their clock runs slow.

Binding energy certainly proves that E=mc2 is true.

In the derivation of special relativity, the speed of light is absolute. For different inertial frames, the frames that travel by at relativistic speeds will be length contracted and time dilated. That's because we are relying upon photons (real and virtual) to transmit information between them.

It is light that is absolute; speed of light c. Not clocks and not distance.

"the universe is orderly which suggests that whatever is keeping it orderly does reach everywhere instantaneously. "

The universe is certainly orderly. Conservation and causality have a lot to do with this. Energy is not being created or destroyed; it has to go somewhere.

As for causality, we agree that time travel is impossible. But it is also true that: Nothing happens unless something causes it to happen.

Let me set the stage. I work alone. My work is very different from standard physics theory. It is simpler both in interpretations and mathematics. However, showing continuous fundamental unity, in the theoretical physics sense, requires going the distance. So my work is extensive, though certainly not complete. There are no resources or references to point to. There are no...

Let me set the stage. I work alone. My work is very different from standard physics theory. It is simpler both in interpretations and mathematics. However, showing continuous fundamental unity, in the theoretical physics sense, requires going the distance. So my work is extensive, though certainly not complete. There are no resources or references to point to. There are no famous physcists who's opinions I can call upon. So, I must explain every step supporting my view, while, others get to point in this direction or that direction for support. For example, it is not necessary to derive relativity theory in order to argue in defense of it. The opposite is not true, and cannot be done well in a message forum. So I make statements that can be argued without getting into many details.

If I say time is absolute, then I rely upon the fact that time is not a part of physics equations. The 'time' dilation of relativity theory is really 't' dilation. Whatever physicists want to define as 't' is fine with me, but it is not the actual property of time. It is some cyclic activity chosen for its accuracy. As I said, the rates of activity are not absolute. They involve the behavior of objects. They are affected by objects interacting with other objects. So, I can push a little bit against relativity theory by stating that.

I run into a real problem of explanation if I go further. For example, you stated: "When you say "absolute time", you must mean that there is one clock for the whole universe.", and, you are correct. But, If I identify that which I think is the clock of the universe, I will very quickly be faced with a much more involved argument. It doesn't seem worth the effort, because, I will probably get bogged down hopelessly in details very quickly.

Another example: I can say that equations are useful if they accurately model the patterns observed in empirical data. I can further say that that does not protect the equations from erroneous theoretical interpretation. I think that is a supportable statement. So, I can admit that e=mc2 works very well. However, if I begin to say what is wrong with its theoretical interpretation, then I will quickly become bogged down in a very challenging situation. That situation does not lend itself well to a message forum, and, I hesitate to put the effort into it.

I have sated that the speed of light, under local conditions, measures as a constant. Fortunately, I have not been challenged about that statement, because, if I am asked why I add the stipulation of 'under local conditions' then I am faced with the task of explaining why I do not include remote conditions. You say that the speed of light is absolute. You do not have to struggle to support that well adopted view. If I say it is not absolute, where do I go from there except into a very challenging situation. So, I actually do a lot of tip toeing around. It probably doesn't seem that way from the rather brash sounding statements that I often make, but that is the case.

With regard to the orderliness of the universe, all laws and properties flow from that fact and are not really available as causes for that fact. As for energy, it was simply adopted as a substantive part of the universe during the derivation of higher level theories, while that interpretation has no support in the fundamentals.

The passion you have for your work is familiar to me. I approach the physics from my point of view.

Allow me to share some thoughts that you may or may not agree with; do with them what you will.

First: yes, the speed of light is absolute, locally. Over a distance of thousands of lightyears, it will be possible to find objects that are moving faster than c, with respect to each other. Observations like that can be relegated to frame dragging. It's still not possible to signal or transmit information faster than the speed of light, without completely departing from this universe. There are some cosmological observations that will fool observers, but information signalling occurs no faster than c for this universe.

Second, when a particle emits a photon, that photon typically travels in all directions as a wave amplitude. The particle was the origin; to the emitted photon, that particle is its absolute frame of reference and absolute clock, until the photon is absorbed by something else.

Third, all distance and velocities are measured relative to the absolute nature of the photon. The virtual/real photon carries all of the spatial and temporal relationships of the universe. It sets its own clock to whatever emitted it.

"There are many theoretical models which include mirror fermions, and people have worked on ways to deal with them, giving the mirror fermions large masses."

There is *no* theoretical model I'm aware of which is nonchiral and gives mass to a "chiral half" of the fermions, which is what you seem to want. If you have such an example, you should post more details. Every example (e.g. the "left-right symmetric model") I'm aware of involving "mirror fermions" is a chiral gauge theory. Indeed, there are obvious reasons to think that one can never get chiral fermions from a nonchiral theory. (There's a reason why it's so challenging to put chiral gauge theories on a lattice; if you have a real solution to this, people would be very excited!)

I agree. This is the argument in favor of right-handed neutrinos. If neutrinos have mass, then they must travel slower than c according to Relativity. Then we can use a relativistic transformation to 'get ahead' of the neutrino, look back at it, and observe the reversed spin, a right-handed neutrino.

Relativistic transformations should prevent the left- and right-handed neutrinos from having different masses, however the left-handed neutrino couples to the Standard Weak interaction, wheras the right-handed neutrino does not - and is, therefore, much more difficult to observe (right-handed neutrinos have zero color charge, zero electric charge, zero Weak isospin, and a tiny gravitational mass).

I don't think it is possible to have mirror fermions with different masses. These extra degrees of freedom must be either 1) Supersymmetry, or 2) a counting of both the initial and final fermion states of a Feynman interaction vertex.

And yes - I'm just counting degrees of freedom. Deriving an effective Lagrangian is the next step of my approach.

You wrote, ""Photons are massless" and therefore "not physical". Their rest mass is zero, but their relativistic mass is non-zero. What about mass-energy equivalence? What about the confinement of photons by Black Holes? I beg to differ. Thanks to the properties of light, electromagnetic waves and second quantization, photons seem as real to me as anything else. Maybe I can't throw a rock of photons at you, but I could blast you with a laser... Which would hurt the most?"

The "photons are not physical" statement was James's straw man. What I actually said was that massless photons are not identical to information, as James falsely claimed. Every boson, as a carrier of information, has to be identified with a fermionic interaction. Because by Pauli's exclusion principle, two fermions cannot occupy the same energy state and yet an infinity of bosons may occupy any point, by James's reckoning every point of space was specially created to contain infinite information and no evolution ever happened. If this were true (and we know it isn't), we would not be able to determine any order to the universe. No real measurement would be possible.

This actually gets back to the discussion of mathematical structure vs. phenomenology. Changes in space points are only determined relative to measurement of changes between mass points ("Their rest mass is zero, but their relativistic mass is non-zero," as you say). James's philosophy, like Lisi's model, begs a bosonic universe. James goes further, though, in that no objective reality can survive at all in his model.

I apologize for the typo. I meant to say "Photons are massless and therefore not physical?" (I accidentally left off the question mark.) I thought you were saying the opposite to pick at James - it seems that I mis-understood you.

I find several problems with Lisi's ideas. For the past two years, I have said that E8 is only 8-dimensional, and not large enough to include M-Theory (I think M-Theory is an incomplete theory, but a start in the right direction) and therefore, not large enough to include 'THE TOE'. E8 also has a 'pentality' symmetry that Lisi did not identify. And to Lubos' and your points, the TOE cannot be based strictly on bosonic operators. In my opinion, this requires Supersymmetry. Thus any theory based on E8 must be a minimum of a 16-dimensional SUSY E8 x E8*.

"...The "photons are not physical" statement was James's straw man. What I actually said was that massless photons are not identical to information, as James falsely claimed. ..."

This what you wrote,

"...If photons are identical to information, then information isn't physical, because photons are massless. ..."

Now you say,

"I said that if information and photons were identical, information could not be given a physical definition. That is simply a true statement. In the contemporary information-theoretic world, information is modeled on Shannon's communication theory, whose mathematics is identical to thermodynamic entropy."

Fine, leave it as you now say. However, it is the case that everything you learn results from information delivered to you through the intermediaries of photons. You learn by attaching meaning to your choice of patterns from a hodgepodge mix of photons coming to you at the speed of light. Your internal conclusions are your best guesses about what the outside world may be like.

"Are you reading anything I said? The list included evolution, chemical self assembly, self organization, self organized criticality. You want book references--are you entirely innocent of any of this research?"

You define the fundamental properties of the unverse as being dumb. You look at the world and see that useful, intelligent things happen. You conclude that since you believe your view to be correct, that dumbness gives rise to intelligent results. Dumbness cannot give rise to any intelligent results. The most logical conclusion to be drawn is that your definition of dumbness for the universe is wrong.

Photons bring you all information. Tiny, discontinuous, scrambled up, multitudinous pieces of information about an incredible amount of things happening. The result in a dumb universe would be that many particles of matter changed their velocities. The result in an intelligent universe would be that the universe communicated with you and you understood its meaning to the best of your ability.

You write, "...it is the case that everything you learn results from information delivered to you through the intermediaries of photons. You learn by attaching meaning to your choice of patterns from a hodgepodge mix of photons coming to you at the speed of light. Your internal conclusions are your best guesses about what the outside world may be like."

You write, "...it is the case that everything you learn results from information delivered to you through the intermediaries of photons. You learn by attaching meaning to your choice of patterns from a hodgepodge mix of photons coming to you at the speed of light. Your internal conclusions are your best guesses about what the outside world may be like."

You seem incapable, or unwilling, to recognize that your (or any individual's) perceptions having nothing to do with objective knowledge. Your view is called solipsism, and it's anti-science. (Of course, you appear to have your private definition of "science," too.)

You wrote, "You define the fundamental properties of the unverse as being dumb."

No I don't. I don't even know what you mean by that, What I _did_ say -- which is simply another objectively true, in fact trivially true, statement -- is that there is no way in principle to determine if particles are acting intelligently or randomly. If there were, no questions would remain, and science would be descriptive rather than predictive.

"You conclude that since you believe your view to be correct, that dumbness gives rise to intelligent results."

If you mean by 'intelligence from dumbness' that we can't model intelligent behavior from inanimate particles -- then you're wrong, because yes, we can and do do that. We don't have to assume a property of 'intelligence,' for whatever you mean by that, a priori. Your claims are simply incorect, falsified by _empirical_ data.

You say, "Photons bring you all information. Tiny, discontinuous, scrambled up, multitudinous pieces of information about an incredible amount of things happening. The result in a dumb universe would be that many particles of matter changed their velocities."

Your physics is fundamentally incorrect, James, and there's no way to patch it up. In the first place, realize that because photons in the vacuum are speed of light particles, that they can change trajectory without changing veocity (there is therfore no time parameter in a model made of communicating bosons). Photons aren't particles of matter, they are particles of electromagnetic radiation, energy bundles. While it's correct, in some colloquial sense, to speak of matter as "slow light," no such things as slow and fast exist between a pair of bosons. Bosons are born at the speed of light, and never go slower. Particles of "dumb matter" can and do change velocities; I suppose, though, if you're going to challenge f = ma, you might as well challenge gravitational acceleration, too. It's a free country. Your view will still be invalid, however.

When one speaks of photons carrying information, one refers to information transmitted between mass points. A physical information theory incorporates the same mathematical model of entropy (Shannon), as a thermodynamic system.

You conclude, "The result in an intelligent universe would be that the universe communicated with you and you understood its meaning to the best of your ability."

What do you think science _is_, James? We just don't assume a priori that we know the universe is intelligent. And we _do_ know, from theory and evidence that we do not -- to borrow from La Place, have a need for that hypothesis.

"You write, "...it is the case that everything you learn results from information delivered to you through the intermediaries of photons. You learn by attaching meaning to your choice of patterns from a hodgepodge mix of photons coming to you at the speed of light. Your internal conclusions are your best guesses about what the outside world may be like."

You seem incapable, or unwilling, to recognize that your (or any individual's) perceptions having nothing to do with objective knowledge. Your view is called solipsism, and it's anti-science. ...""

You seem incapable of of recognizing that my point goes right to the heart of science.

You wrote, "You seem incapable of of recognizing that my point goes right to the heart of science."

Yes, James, that's true.

I know science to be a democratic, cooperative enterprise When one proposes to bring new knowledge to the common store, it has to be in a form that all can share; i.e., objective. If it were not this way, we could have a priesthood declare what is "scientifically true," and forget about objective knowledge. Science would not then be different from religion or politics.

This is one of the few things I get overly emotional about. I truly am offended by those who claim special knowledge using the authority of science, without doing the work that makes it worthy of being scientific knowledge.

Don't misunderstand. I am perfectly willing that individuals have their private beliefs, moral standards, philosophies, religions. I am not willing that they be imposed on science. Or on public policy in general, for that matter.

You wrote, "Here is the question of the day....the identity of euler ...... ,why is it better to write correctly the identity of Euler, a first step was made with e exp i pi + 1 = 0 (first step the - is harmonized in the physicality), but still the zero must be adapted, who has an idea ,hihihihi ?"

I don't know what you're asking, Steve. If you want a short explanation of the Euler equation, however:

It starts with this geometric relation: e^ix = cos x + i sin x. e is the Euler number ~ 2.718 ... which is the root of the natural logarithm. i is the imaginary number, sqrt -1. The equation is crucial to analysis, because it interprets the complex plane in a geometric way, thus allowing us to define continuous functions by rotating through the axes of the real and imaginary lines -- complex analysis treats what are only points on the Cartesian plane, as line on the complex plane.

When we express the above relation in logarithmic form ((logarithms are the inverse of exponentials), we get, when we substitute the term pi for the term x, ln(-1) = i(pi), which means that the natural logarithm of -1 is the imaginary number multiplied by the constant pi. Then we translate the equation to exponential form, and find, e^i(pi) = -1.

The zero appears in the final reduced equation only because of the simple algebraic operation of transferring -l to the left side of the equation:

e^i(pi) + 1 = 0.

I am among those who think this is one of the most beautiful (perhaps the most beautiful), equations in mathematics.

Yes like said Feynman at the age of 15 , I know but Think by yourself dear Tom Beautiful equation, the sphere dear Tom the sphere , think by yourself and see around you ...and of course forget these strings,

I agree with Tom that e^i(pi) = -1 is pretty cool. Who would expect that you could combine three numbers as wierd as e, i, and pi and get something simple?

Spheres might be a mathematical representation that are never truly attained in Nature. The soccer ball is a buckyball. The golf ball has dimples. The baseball has seams. The Earth is roughly an oblate spheroid. Even ball bearings are defined to within thousandths of an inch (or cm) of tolerance, and therefore, not perfect spheres. I guess a ground-state Hydrogen atom in a vacuum should have a spherical electron probability distribution, but once you measure or define an electron as a point quantum, you lose that perfect spherical symmetry.

I think my buckyballs are more 'perfect' than your spheres because you can build a perfect buckyball with merely 60 Carbon atoms.

Well , I am going to say you a thing Ray, here in Belgium we dislike the competition, the strategy and the method of business,.

I know you like that in USA? winer looser...oh my God it is a real big global problem .....

Personally I dislike that and never I am strategic thus please be more scientific and less in the business.....

SPHERIZATION EUREKA FROM BELGIUM .......You can utilize all your words, all your methods, never that will change ......it exists two worlds in sciences, the searchers of truth and the others for the public which dio not know the foundamentals thus good business simply .

The rest is a lost of time for me .

Friendly Ray and frankly like a belgian .......C60 is just a state of balane still the spheres...nanotubes and thermodynamics simply.

QUANTUM SPHERES(finite number and fractal of the main central sphere, serie specific ) rotation implying mass.....evolution ...cosmological spheres and their polarized coded systems(lifes, minerals, ....) all that in a sphere in optimization with a center where all turns around.It is a little resume.

Your physics teacher has left time out of the explanation and that is the reason for the confusion. The formulation of GR has, at it's core, the implication that It is not only space that is being 'distorted', but time as well. Time and space are inseparable in this regards. In this framework, one cannot mathematically or physically define one without the other....

Your physics teacher has left time out of the explanation and that is the reason for the confusion. The formulation of GR has, at it's core, the implication that It is not only space that is being 'distorted', but time as well. Time and space are inseparable in this regards. In this framework, one cannot mathematically or physically define one without the other. Hence, we have Spacetime, not Space and Time as separate 'things' that exist in their own right.

Using this, let's go back to the rubber sheet analogy. Get out a sheet of paper and draw a Cartesian axis representing the X and Y coordinates. Let X represent the time coordinate and let Y represent the position coordinate. This is a simple spacetime 'manifold' that in this case takes on the structure of our familiar Euclidean geometry. At t=x=0, if you place the object a distance from the origin, D, and assume there are no external forces, the 'worldine' of the object would simply represent a line parallel to the X-axis. In other words, at times t, t+1, t+2, t+n...., the object would still be found in position D on your manifold.

Now, imagine taking that flat surface and distorting it by placing it on the surface of a sphere or other curved surface. You can't do this without scrunching up the paper, but let's just use this as a rough analogy. If you were to now inspect the worldline by reading off the coordinates as they exist on the sphere, you would see that the worldline that was parallel to the X-axis on your flat sheet of paper is no longer linear when projected back onto the flat sheet. In other words, when the geometry of the flat sheet of paper is distorted, the relationships between position and time no longer appear linear, as was the case with the worldline on your flat sheet of paper. Projected back onto a flat grid, the corresponding curve would no longer be a straight line. At time t+1, the object would no longer be in position D. It just so happens that for a spherical surface, the line would translate to a curve that would be described by a parabola on our flat, Euclidean manifold. The equation of the projection would no longer be D=Constant(i.e. independent of time), it would now have the form, D=aT**2+b. Does this look familiar? .

Essentially, Einstein was telling us that gravity only appears to be a force because when spacetime is 'distorted' by the presence of matter, time and space no longer behave as they would in an inertial reference frame without the presence of mass. At time t+n, you will no longer be in the same position. Another way to say this is that in the presence of matter, gravity is in your future ! This sounds very crazy but it is the consequence of the inseparability of space and time.

This is a very rough analogy but it will certainly shed more light on this for you. It is also why clocks will appear to click off at different rates depending on the local properties of spacetime. Funny things happen when observers in different regions of spacetime compare notes. There is no absolute measurement of space or time. There is no preferred coordinate system and the local spacetime geometry of different observers can vary wildly.

One misconception to avoid, however, is the notion that mass causes 4 dimensional spacetime to be curved into another space of dimension 5. GR defines the local and global structures as intrinsic properties of 4-dimensional spacetime. In essence, we are describing the geometry of our universe. It just happens that this geometry appears locally Euclidean in most cases. There is nothing external to this 4-dimensional manifold. GR describes the geometrical properties of spacetime. In fact you would not need to imagine 4-dimensional spacetime to really be curved into a 'higher' dimension. One can simply figure out the metric by observing the intrinsic properties of certain things like dot-products or angles. 'Curved Space' is actually a bad way of describing it as spacetime is really not curving into anything. We say 'curved' because in our three-dimensional world that we are used to seeing, the geometrical projections of straight lines on some surfaces would not be linear if drawn out on a flat surface--they would look curved.

I am trying to simplify Bubba Gump’s earlier (and correct) explanation. Imagine flat plan geometry and consider the parallel axiom: two parallel lines never intersect. Each of those lines represents the history of one stationary particle moving forward in time.

Now consider two parallel lines on a sphere staring at the equator and going toward North Pole. What happens in this case? The lines come closer and closer and eventually meet at the North Pole. It’s like they “attract” each other. Call this attraction “gravity”. This is the gist of Einstein’s general relativity.

There are a few more conceptual ideas. Most important, what causes the space time to become a sphere instead of a flat plane? (in other words what curves space time?) The answer: the presence of mass: mass tells space-time how to curve. There is the opposite effect as well: the space-time tells matter how to move. The rest of the story is complicated math and the interplay of the 2 effects. The reason this works like this in this geometrical framework is the so-called “equivalence principle”: inertial mass is the same as the gravitational mass, but this is an entire separate discussion.

Point well taken, Anon. I promise not to get sucked back into off topic discussions.

Back to Lubos Motl's objectiions to E8 however. I won't be Lubosian (good coinage, whoever said that); however, the question is fundamental. I beg to be corrected:

Is E8 a theory of the physical field, or a mathematical field alone?

One can find no physical reason, past the Planck limit of the microscale, to assume continuity of space with time. Inertia can be shown independent of space, while time cannot be shown independent of inertia. I mean, that if Lisi claims to use only the mathematics of general relativity and the standard model, where does one find the physics of relativity? -- the spacetime field is physically real and dynamic in Einstein's theory; GR is a kinetic theory in the classical sense. Mach's Principle, the basis for general relativity, allows time flow among mass points without any consideration for the vacuum; there are no space points. Imparting kinetics to a theory containing only spatial points requires mating time with quantum mechanics. Hawking and Hartle found a way to do it -- I don't see the way in E8.

Not to sound like a Lubosian myself, but he made a solid statement when he said "You can't ever unite fermions and bosons via a symmetry that only has bosonic generators". From models that Lawrence Crowell and I have been playing with, I think that this implies the TOE is (minimally) an (E8 x H4 x G2) x (E8* x H4* x G2*) (where the * fields are Supersymmetry) with a minimum rank and dimension of 28. The H4 x H4* might behave like a split-solution supersymmetric E8. These ideas tie in with other ideas by Ferrante (topic 602), Sachdev (article 115) and (to a lesser degree) Dray and Manogue (article 119) that have also been presented on FQXi.

Specifically, Lawrence has been working with a 27 dimensional Jordan transform of an E8 triplet. The E8 triplet works within Ferrante's ideas (if one E8 is 'split'). And the 27 dimensional Jordan transform looks like a more general version of Dray and Manogue's 10-D E8 transform ideas.

For months, I have been pushing the idea of Imaginary Time as the 12th dimension in my models (28th dimension in Lawrence's models), and have been ignored for the most part. But I now realize that I wasn't counting the 13th and 14th dimensions when they were clearly in my face. The problem is that I was confusing the fullerene-like D3-brane at the core of the Black Hole with the graphene-like M2-brane at the edge of the Universe. As such, I was counting 12-D, not 14-D. Supersymmetrize it, and you now have 28-D.

Perhaps Garrett's E8 should more closely resemble the 'split' H4 x H4* solution - in which it would contain SM fermions and their supersymmetric partners, but could not contain all of the interaction bosons.

I think Garrett started something interesting. I think that E8 is a major sub-component of TOE, but it is too small to be THE TOE.

You didn't get sucked into anything. My message to the anonymous student was: "Theoretical physics embraces non-intelligence. Particles of matter are dumb. Nothing tells anything else how to bend or move unless there is a real explanation. Einstein's name is not enough to explain why there is gravity. If an object undergoes acceleration then it is being acted upon by a force. What is force?"

It was not addressed to you. I am in favor of staying on topic. Answering the student's inquiry was not wrong for either you or me. You chose to engage me. Let the topic resume.

If you have some ideas, that might make a good grant proposal or essay contest idea.

Dear Jason,

So many symmetries are involved - Supersymmetry, S-Duality, Wick Rotations - any one of a handful of ideas could easily justify imaginary space and/or time. It only takes one mirror symmetry (and Garrett has an extra one that people criticize) to justify complex numbers.

Thanks. I wanted to compare notes on this. I figured that anywhere an imaginary number shows up, you have oscillations, wave functions, light and one set of electric charges.

I wanted to consider the idea of a set of orthogonal imaginary times which would result in its own diverse multiverse. I wanted to make sure I wasn't violating any serious mathematical rules, like suggsting that 1+1= 7, something embarrasing like that.

Most of my efforts with E8 have happened since I wrote that book (in 2007 & 2008). I think the two most important ideas in that book were Quantum Statistical Grand Unified Theory and Hyperflavor.

Garrett's theory was about E8. I attribute my E8 inspiration to Garrett. The funny thing is that I asked Jacques Distler for an arXiv HEP-TH referral, and his 4 reasons for not giving me one were 1) he didn't know me (although other Professors at the University of Texas might remember me), 2) he didn't know what E12 was supposed to be (would it have been less controversial if I had called it K12' to emphasize similarities with the Coxeter-Todd K12 lattice?), 3) he didn't like that Garrett Lisi was my inspiration, and 4) he didn't like my association with El Naschie. I guess you can't please everyone...

It seems that specific questions about E8 are relevant to this blog site.

I don't understand time. I think that unseen and unknown dimensions and their respective quantum numbers affect the Spacetime in which we live, and we attribute those effects to "Time". How does an elementary particle 'remember' its properties? How does an electron 'know' that it has a rest mass of 511 KeV/c^2, an electric charge of -e, and an intrinsic spin of 1/2 h-bar? And how do we get the concept of 'spin' out of a 'point particle'? The concept of 'spin' only makes sense (relative to classical analogies) if this 'point particle' has size in at least one dimension - even if that dimension is tiny (like Kaluza's 5th dimension). Where is Hilbert space? There are far too many models that we casually use without asking deeper questions. Why do these models work?

Dear Jason,

I agree with your assessment. It reminds me of the Kramers-Kronig relation - a change in 'real space quantum numbers' causes changes in 'imaginary space quantum numbers', which can induce unexpected (or non-trivial) changes in 'real space quantum numbers'. Electromagnetism is a perfect example of this. Somehow, gravitational effects that originate in Hyperspace are transferred to Spacetime. Is this transfer of effect accomplished via Kramers-Kronig-like, entropic-like (Verlinde), fractal-like (El Naschie), or entangled (I have conserved quantum numbers in multiple dimensions) means? I don't know. All I can do is build models, check them for self-consistency, and hope that someday an experiment can confirm something about Hyperspace. Perhaps Coldea et al have already confirmed extra dimensions with their reinforcement of E8 (which doesn't make sense in less than 8 dimensions).

I've been trying to tackle gravity, dark energy, the cosmological constant and the Einstein equations. Scaling the speed of light seems to Fast Forward events relative to scale; everything happens faster in hyper-space where c' > c. Also, if a mass from our universe is moved into hyper-space, it will have less mass.

Perhaps imaginary time explains the minus sign in the Minkowski tensor.

I suspect that something (more than S-Duality?) connects the largest sizes - the graphene-like M2-brane at the outer edge of the Universe - with the smallest sizes - the fullerene-like D3-brane at the core of a Black Hole. If so, then everything in between should also 'be connected'. This is related to the 'framing' problem that Lawrence has with Lisi's E8.

OK, here is another crazy thought that links gravity-space-time-QM... Space itself is a ball of "potential" rubber bands. If nothing is exciting that piece of space, then you don't really see the "rubber".

I was just trying to keep my promise not to stray off topic here. I didn't want to get into imaginary time in the context of E8, because time seems to be emergent in Lisi's theory (a simple action principle), and time--imaginary or not -- is primary in classical physics, as a nonseparable element of the spacetime field.

I was just trying to keep my promise not to stray off topic here. I didn't want to get into imaginary time in the context of E8, because time seems to be emergent in Lisi's theory (a simple action principle), and time--imaginary or not -- is primary in classical physics, as a nonseparable element of the spacetime field.

Jason, Steve--first understand that space and time are the only physically real components of particle physics. The big questions are how particles, described as points of space, acquire their energy (interchangeable with mass) from the vaccum (same thing as space) and why those masses have the particular values they have at the time of measurement.

This should suggest to you that one needs a minimum of two dimensions to acquire any information about those points, because if they are changing in time, one wouldn't know it unless by connecting at least two points with a line. So when you look at the results of a bubble chamber experiment, you are seeing a 2-dimensional picture of a particle's history by the tracks that it leaves.

Quantum theory tells us, however, that for the massless points of space (boson particles) no time elapses between those correlated particles. At any distance, all the way to infinity, two "entangled" particles are always in communication. We can't objectively read the history. There's an implication, therefore, that beyond our direct ability to observe nature, there are properties of space and time, a superfield so to speak, of which we are only seeing shadows (yeah, I've read Plato too).

Does this field require only the classical number of dimensions (3 + 1)? Maybe we need to add dimensions to get the masses we need. Then maybe we need mirror sysmmetry and supersymmetric partners for all the particles we find. The problem, in any case, is that as we go up the energy scale higher and higher, the less attainable the particle histories because the shorter lived the particles. Our capacity to generate the energy runs out before we can generate the theoretic particles.

So it all comes back to, as Einstein knew a hundred years ago ... cosmology. We can only see a slice of time, while the universe literally has all the time in the world. Einstein's classical theory, however, can't wind the clock back to the beginning and tell us what happpened before the Planck limit.

Enter Hawking and Hartle. Remember, we noted that quantum mechanics needs 2 dimensions, fundamentally (space cannot be collapsed to a point, and still preserve dynamic relations). We also noted that masses are equivalent to spatial points, and that a line describes the history of a point changing in time.

Now, even though it's commonly known as "imaginary time," the concept has nothing to do with making stuff up and calling it real. It has to do with the structure of the complex plane and complex analysis. You know that the Cartesian plane has an x-y axis by which one can identify the coordinate points of a location in real space. In the complex plane, the x axis is the line on which the real numbers live, and the y axis is imaginary. The important thing for our purposes, however, is that points on the complex plane are analyzed as lines. So if we are speaking of the history of a pair of point particles in which time = 0, it makes sense that their history might be entirely imaginary.

Consider that the generalized complex plane (also called the Riemann sphere) is a 1-point compactification of the 2-dimensional complex plane, with a point at infinity. The way Hawking explained it, if one is going to the North Pole, which is a point, a singularity (the complex sphere has only the one pole, at infinity), one does not disappear into nothingness or fall off the edge of the planet. What does happen, though, is that past the limit of the singularity the spacetime continuum yields to quantization. No longer do we have a continuous metric of time as in the real world described by real numbers; we have a surface of time which is indistinguishable from the 2-dimensional plane on which we describe particle histories as static instants. So one can see why Hawking said that imaginary time is as ordinary as that time in which we actually live -- I know this to be true, with just a little practice.

Another consequence is that boundary conditions (a common requirement of continuous field theories) disappear (Hawking's "no boundary" proposal).

Relating this all to Lisi and E8:

I will try to explain by way of analogy, my problem with Garett's theory:

During WW II, a tribe of primitive South Sea islanders became accustomed to regular Allied airdops of food and supplies. After the war, the airdrops stopped. The islanders, who knew nothing of airplanes or the origin of the drops but missed the free stuff, built a model cargo plane from sticks and rocks, hoping it would attract back their lost fortune.

My point: we can build all kinds of structures from mathematical theories that won't fly, physically -- unless we include such essentials as an engine.

The engine in fundamental physics is made of space and time alone. One can't make models of static space (bosons) and expect time dependent mass (fermions) to mystically power them.

There's always the possibility that reality won't be described by a continuous field model. Personally, though, my bet is down.

It seems that we were both typing responses at the same time, and our responses are complementary.

I agree that the topic of time is getting somewhat off the topic of Garrett's E8, and Garrett is one of my Facebook friends - I want to respect his blog site.

However, E8 implies extra dimensions (that Garrett didn't address) and any TOE must try to explain the concept of 'Time'. How can you have a 'Theory of Everything' if you haven't properly described time?

My own formulation of gravity as a fraction of length 1 in hypersapce shows the time metric n-dimensional dissipative, n > 4. As a result time is identical to a 1-dimension information string, as I think Verlinde also has it (Shannon's model of information entropy is mathematically identical to the model of energy entropy). I am in the process of learning more.

So Space and time are needed to make the physics model fly... OK, I can change the speed of light and make time happen slower or faster; admittedly, slower would by kind of useless.

But what is this "space" thing you call the vacuum? We keep getting more of it which makes the universe expand. If its not isotropic, gravity occurs, geodesic stuff; it's sure as heck not isotropic when I get out of bed in the morning. Why does the sun, so far away, have the ability to reach across space and pull the earth towards it? Can space stretch, distorting isotropic inertia and create a gravity field? Can space collapse into a singularity in the presence of a black hole?

What is the relationship between the speed of light (how faster signaling/communication occurs), AND inertia/geodesic also known as gravity?

Space is not the vacuum because I call it that. Empty space has always been the vacuum. We're not necessarily getting more of it -- we're getting is a consequence of how we measure distance between mass points.

The speed of light--and when we use that term we mean the speed of light in empty space--is a measured constant. When it is used in special relativity, whose famous conclusion is E = mc^2, it's a mathematical artifact; i.e., Einstein doesn't need it to express the relation E = m, except that it keeps the proportions between energy and mass, which are interchangeable quantities, calculable in constant terms. If the speed of light were different? I don't know. If it were still a constant, if it didn't fluctuate, it would simply change the calculation, not the proportionality. I try not to speculate much beyond known physics.

I guess you mean that your space is not isotropic because you experience gravity--of course, we're all living in this same gravity field. Remember, however, that the universe is mostly flat, Euclidean; we live in a special, very small, part of it. The sun doesn't pull the Earth toward it, according to general relativity -- the Earth just follows the spacetime path that the sun's gravity creates. Space does stretch, i.e., spatial points change relative position in the presence of gravity, though we can only measure this effect in very strong gravity fields.

Can space collapse into a singularity? We know that a singularity lies at the center of a black hole; so far as I know, though, the question of whether a "naked singularity" (a black hole without an event horizon) can exist, is still open.

Your last question -- I don't think you mean to say _speed_ of light (those effects are explained by relativity); rather, I think you mean to ask how are gravity and electromagnetic radiation interrelated? Answer that, and win a Nobel.

Golf ball = lots of rubber bands going in all directions. Rubber bands transmit energy at speed c. Rubber bands are not physical to us, but we notice their effects when they vibrate, transmit energy, or are gravitationally stretched.

The Cosmic golf ball is not such a dumb idea if you accept that the rubber bands are not detectable if they are not being energized by anything. This explains why the calculation for the Cosmological constant is off by a hundred orders of magnitude. 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999% of those oscillators never carry any energy. When they do, it's transmitted at the speed of light.

Are there vibrating rubber bands that extend from one side of the universe to the other? In principle it's possible. In practice, I dunno. Can anything entangle across that distance?

Can the rubber bands of the Cosmic golf ball move, overlap or cross? They can move relative to the movement of the universe. I think they can be frame dragged. They can certainly cross each other. A disturbance might even be able to jump from one rubber band to another.

Rubber bands are the closest analogy I can find. The reality is given by the Einstein equation and QM. These rubber bands are probably a little bit like quantum eigenstates. They are potentially available for use, but their existence is generally hidden from direct view.

OK, it's obvious that gravity has stumped the physics community. So while the rest of you are playing around with Verlinde's entropic theory, I am going to explain to you how to build an artificial gravity propulsion engine. I will walk the thin like of making sure my anti-gravity drive does not violate conservation of energy.

This is what we do. Using two imaginary time lines, I am going to create a quark-gluon plasma on each time line. For anyone who didn't know, a quark-gluon plasma is what you get when protons and neutrons melt. Now, ordinarily, you could have a quark-gluon soup in the same place, one two different imaginary time lines, and they would not interact. However, I will be using a substance that I call trans-imaginarium. Trans-imaginarium is used to convert fermions and bosons from one time-line to another. I can adjust the energy flow into the quark gluon plasma for both time-lines. When the trans-imaginarium is injected, conversions of quarks from one time-line to the other will occur in both directions. I can adjust to the equilibrium that I want. The dual quark plasmas are often referred to, by me, as dual-quarkium.

So what does dual quarkium do for us? Well, the Einstein equations tell us that the expansion of the universe, due to dark energy, is due to the Cosmological constant. By the way, the reason the cosmological constant can't be calculated accurately, and are a hundred orders of magnitude off, is because they are calculating the maximum energy density capacity, not the zero point energy. That's nice, so what? The cosmological constant can be used to make space-time expand or contract. We all know that gravity due to planets, stars, moons, etc., is really just space collapsing into a gravitational point. In other words, expansion of the universe isn't really gravity. But it looks enough like gravity that we can use it.

Dual-quarkium plasma creates a current flow of cosmological gas/space-time, that can cause space to expand or contract around the dual quarkium. It will expand on one time line and collapse on the other time line (gravity // anti-gravity).

Using this, we can expand space-time underneath a very heavy star-ship to where it hovers effortlessly and ominously above your cities. Of course, if the spaceship is too heavy, the anti-gravity force might crush everything under it.

I have questions for those who want to learn about alien technology:

1. Can a spaceship hover and still conserve energy?

2. What is the effective thrust?

3. Is changing the cosmological constant in this way the same thing as warping space?

Strings have a tension t = (1/2πα’), which is about 10^{45}N. Here α’ is the string coupling constant. The tension I think is similar to inertial confinement in QCD. It renormalizes to a small value at high energy, and becomes large at lower energy. This is a sort of quantum phase transition. This has connections with “braney” physics, for a string attached to a NS5-brane associated with an event horizon, exhibits a change of behavior. Consider as a toy model a virtual wormhole in a spacetime is defined by a D2-brane which connects two Schwarzschild regions with a “throat.” At high energy, or small scale the string tension T is small. There are two three ball regions in the interior of the wormhole are also connected and define a three sphere S^3, partition by a D2-brane or M2-brane. The dual NS5-brane is the black brane of a black hole. However, if the 3-ball in the interior is large enough under a quantum fluctuation there may be induced a phase transition so the string tension becomes large, or equivalently the string parameter alpha becomes small. The single string illustrated on the left is in a pure state, but when T becomes large the string fragments into an ensemble of string in an entangled state --- with an entanglement entropy. This is then the onset of inflation which stops at reheating and the subsequent thermal entropy.

The 5 and 2 branes have a duality with each other, where the NS5-brane is the actual brane at the horizon or stretched horizon. The stretched horizon is in effect a Dp-brane. The string coupling constant under the quantum phase transition decreases rapidly, increasing the string tension. The string breaks up and increases the number of modes on the brane, N ~ 2^{A/cL_p^2}, and the entanglement entropy increase as S = (A/cL_p^2)log(2), meaning c = 4log(2). This can also be seen according to the string tension t = (1/2πα’). For T \lt T_c, the critical temperature = 0 even for N --> ∞. The entropy for N modes is S = NkT with the temperature T = (1/2π)(ħt/kc) = (1/2π)^2(ħα’/kc) at the critical temperature T = T_c.

I get the feeling that physics isn't made of anything that I've ever physically experienced.

It's like space exists as a something in some ways, but as "magical" long range forces in other respects.

So why does the earth experience an inertial path around the sun? What is it that exists between the sun and the earth? Space-time? That's a glib answer.

Can there be a "something" that exists and acts like space-time, a brane or something? Can it be invisible or non interacting to touch, it obeys Newtonian gravity and causes things to accelerate under anisotropic inertial conditions?

Can it be an inertial producing "something"? Can this "something" produce the laws of motion?

I have been following your questioning, and although the questions you pose certainly are interesting, I believe you are running into confusion because you are attempting to equate a scientific explanation with a framework that attempts to assign to objects certain ontogical properties that exist in and of themselves, and are not dervied from realtionships with other properties or classes of objects that exist in nature.

As an example, someone might ask a scientist, "What is color?". The scientist might reply that color is simply a phenomenon that we identify with the properties of the electrogmanetic field and the manner in which such an entity propogates itself through space and time. The color red, for instance, is simply an electromagnetic wave that posesses a certain frequency. The person might respond, "That's not what I am asking. I want to know what color is in and of itself. How can an electromagentic wave give me the sensation of 'redness' What is 'redness' in and of itself?"

This is pretty much the kind of question you are asking and this can easily lead to circular reasaoning if you insist on requiring categorical defintions for entities and the things which instantiate their properties. On a fundamental level, there are things that must exist in and of themselves or one simply ends up in an infinite causal regress. Such things could not be described in terms of relationships with other entites as they are, by defintion, fundamental, and do not derive their existence from any other entities or causal agents.

Science does not define properties, it assigns them based on what we observe. We can, in turn, only define objects, entities, and forces, by these observed properties. The goal of modern physics is really to eventually reach a level where there are no further properties to be defined and all higher levels of structure can be accountee for by appealing to these fundamental properties. Whether this is possible is another question, but I think you get the point. round.

An alpahbet contains arbitray characters upon which a language is built. There are rules that allow one to form relationships among words but the existence of the language is predicated on the existence of the alphabet itself. One cannot describe the members of the alphabet in terms of the structures of the words in a novel. It is a totally meaningless proposition.

So, when you ask, "So why does the earth experience an inertial path around the sun? What is it that exists between the sun and the earth? Space-time? That's a glib answer. "

In response, I will say that space, time, force, inertia, etc.. are simply the alphabet upon which we observe the world to be constructed. It makes no sense to ask for a description of such things in terms of the phenomenon we observe around us. They define the phenomeon. It would make as much sense as asking to define letters in terms of the occurneces of words in a novel.

I perhaps lost you by not mentioning that I rely upon ontological descriptions to guide my approach to physics and the development of the hyper-drive. Intuition provides useful tools towards that goal. Mathematical physics is less effective towards that goal.

Physics proceeds in an operational manner. All of the mathematics is meant to understand the relationships between things which are measured or observed. What is observed is indeed just defined, and defined according to how these observables make a device “click.”

Sorry for the 'Are you serious?' remark. Ok, so click represents the recognition that there were initial conditions and they were observed to change into final conditions. That fits a mathematical equation perfectly. My point is that no one knows what cause is. The relationships between various intitial conditions and final conditions are meticulously studied and recorded. Cause is neither one of those conditions. Cause moves galaxies and makes particles of matter rise up from the earth and become intelligent life.

I had addressed this confusion in my reply to Jason, above. There is no way to reduce a fundamental cause to one that precedes it, either spatially or temporally. If one can reduce a cause to a prior agent, it is not fundamental. It makes no sense to try to define a fundamental cause as it exists in an of itself as it does not rely on anything else for its existence. There is nothing else to define it with.

Invoking causation is the same thing as implying that things happen for a reason and nothing happens which is not ordained by a prior event. If we lived in a universe governed by random chaos then obviously the notion of law, order, and causation would have no definite meaning. We do not live in such a universe. Our universe appears to be structured on orderly behaviors that fits nicely into patterns that we can model using abstractions, both mathematical and temporal. Our notions of causation arise from these abstractions.

Newton was really the first natural philosopher to invoke the notion of causation as we view it today. Newton's first law is essentially a fundamental statement about the nature of causation. On an abstract level, the first law implies that nothing in the Universe happens without a reason. All objects require an impetus in order to change their current observed state of being. An object at rest will sit at rest for an infinite amount of time unless acted upon by an agent. This was a very subtle but revolutionary way of thinking. It is so subtle that many can easily overlook the statement as trivial. Change implies causation and the changes undergone by an object indirectly defines the cause. In the Newtonian worldview, these causes were given a specific name -- forces. Forces are those causal agents responsible for the observed changes that bodies are observed to undergo. Without them, there is no change. Force is defined by the changes it produces, not by what a force is in and of itself. Forces are the 'agents of change.'

The evolution of thought in the sciences is nothing more than an evolution of our formal definitions of the modes of causation responsible for the many changes we observe in nature. The goal is to eventually reduce such causal definitions to a single fundamental relationship which relies on no other principle for for it's existence. It would represent that from which all else is derived. Whether this is possible in principle is another story.

The moral of the story here is that all changes require a cause, otherwise we would have random chaos or nothing at all. Unless one believes in magic then it neccesarily follows that if there is orderly change then there must be causal agents responsible for such changes. How we define these agents is often arbitrary but the fact remains that Sine labore nihil -- "Nothing without work."

It's rare at this moment about the real sense of our gravity and its attraction, this force is all ,the gravity is a modulator, coded of evolution.

The causality is simple in its intrinsic informations....rotating spheres are the key for a real synchro in 3D.

The others dimensions do not exist in our physicality, even this code is important to be in 3D ....without this simple universal correlation, the universe won't be like it is .The cause of this force is the rotation of the spheres.It was logic in fact it was logic .m v V I am persuaded about this new universal constant , the thermodynamics links are incredibles in finite serie.

The spherisation by spheres is logic .The biggest volume is the center ....quantic or universal , the number is the same, like an univeral quantum code.In fact it's simple in the whole and complexs in the mass which evolve , but all in 3D , the system of rotations, coded is so important , the evolution takes all its sense.

Let's take an adn, a torus and all these spheres aged from 13.7 to 15 billions years, you imagine the synchro and sortings with volumes of spheres and their speed of rot.

All is in 3D .The cause is this rotating spheers, the force of gravity simply continues its work of building in time constant.

I do not disagree. When I say that no one knows what cause is, I am saying that there is no way to arrive at an explanation of any cause. It is beyond our intellectual reach. However, when I talk about theoretical physics, I do talk in terms of fundamental cause. That is because, theoretical physicsists...

I do not disagree. When I say that no one knows what cause is, I am saying that there is no way to arrive at an explanation of any cause. It is beyond our intellectual reach. However, when I talk about theoretical physics, I do talk in terms of fundamental cause. That is because, theoretical physicsists claim to have discovered fundamental forces. Even if they move to find causes behind those causes, they cannot do this, at least not without inventing causes and without running up against the problem of being unable to give an initial, uncaused, cause for the origin of the universe. As far as I can tell, they generally avoid that end problem as perhaps not being relevant to their work. In any case, they proceed within their theories to invent additional causes for causes.

Theoretical physics begins by identifying their fundamental forces. If I wish to reduce these down to one fundamental force, then I must adhere to their conventions. It is simply for the purpose of discussing theoretical ideas within the context of theoretical physics. If theoretical physicist claim that there are four fundamental forces, and, I claim there is only one, then, I think theoretical progress has been made. For example, one can identify electric charge as the cause of electro-magnetic effects. Then, the other three forces are introduced as the causes of other types of effects. If unity is desired, then the theorist must find enough prior causes to reduce the fundamental forces down to a single earlier force. That force would then be identified as the original cause, at least in so far as theoretical physics can be formulated. Certainly it is not its own cause, and, in truth there is still no end in sight to the need for definitions of cause.

Now, where I think I can make an important point about theoretical physics within its own context: If I can identify, as my first step, one single cause for all observed effects, then the four fundamental forces are made unnecessary. I cannot demonstrate the cause of my cause. I wouldn't even pursue that effort. For one reason, I think the mechanical approach is clearly artificial and very limiting in its ability to help us understand the operation of the universe. For another reason, I see no point, when speaking merely theoretically, in trying to find a cause for my cause and then a cause for that cause, etc. The usefulness of theoretical physics does not require that extension of thought.

My interest has only to do with demonstrating that only one theoretical cause is necessary to account for all mechanical type effects. That cause cannot be explained, but it can be used. Theory can begin and end with it. The universe remains unexplained, but, theoretical physics then includes fundamental unity right from the beginning. I think the use of the word 'fundamental' in that last sentence is correct to say. A unified beginning does not require establishing a prior existing unity. What do you think?

At the end of the day, we have space, and we have manifestation of energy occurring in space. Some would say space and time; others would say space and motion, etc...

Asking about A priori would be like asking: what is physics made out of? It's not a wrong or a bad question. But science is fundamentally not able to answer that question. The only hope that science can give us is that the Uncertainty Principle can be used like a back door for something, something that might be willing to assist us. If it does, it has to look like a coincidence.

It is is a pointless question and one which will only lead to circulalrity in reasoning. Axioms are a-priori categories of defintion. They cannot be derived, they are accepted as given. Regardless of how you proceed with such a line of questioning as the one you are suggesting, you must first start with certain assumptions(axioms) about the nature of the world before you can proceed.

You said "Regardless of how you proceed with such a line of questioning as the one you are suggesting, you must first start with certain assumptions(axioms) about the nature of the world before you can proceed."

I think you must also operate with the acceptance of certain working assumptions (if not belief in them) or are you a practicing epistemological and meta-physical nihilist?

If one assumes the material world has objective physical existence rather than just being the subjective internally generated fabrication by the mind that is experienced, there must be a least one foundational element that is assumed to exist outside of the mind, so that there is something rather than nothing from which the universe is fabricated. As the something must exist somewhere outside of the mind it does not seem unreasonable to me to assume that there is space in which it has existence.

Not only is there substance there is also change in position of that substance identified as work, heat, kinetic energy etc.I do not think it necessary to consider energy as something separate from the movement of material substance, matter, particle or medium however. I also find it is necessary for me to accept the constancy of the speed of light in a vacuum , within observable 3d space, to agree with observation and the physics of relativity. This imo is the foundation on which all other physics can be built.

I do not think it is necessary or helpful for science to assume that either intelligence or time are also foundational elements. Although it can not be proved that they are not.They are just not a necessary component of a working scientific model of reality even if they are part of the unknowable objective reality.I do not think it hurts to speculate but that does not make those speculations a necessary foundation.

Well the easy part is that I observe that intelligent life exists. Another easy part is that theoretical physics is defined upon properties that lack intelligence. Another easy part is that theoretical physicist invent new properties out of ignorance. In other words, if it cannot be seen how each property is related to the other, then, properties are assumed to be unique. This practice was especially risky in the early stages of theoretical physics. Afterall much less was known then. The need for making guesses was much greater.

The problem that today's theoretical physics suffers from is that it retains the conclusions of many of those early guesses. It relies upon them. It builds upon them. It insists that they remain fundamentally correct. The excuse given for later learning deviations is that the early theories only apply within the range of theory that was known then. Their fundamental correctness is insisted upon so certainly that all belated theories must show they allegiance to the pioneering theories by successfully reducing down to them. In other words, the understandable misinterpretations and mistakes of the past must be retained in modern physics.

The lack of unity in these early theories is evidence of lack of understanding and even worse lack of correctness. So today's theoretical physicists find themselves debating the relevance of this many dimensions or that many dimensions. What dimensions?!!!!! Stick to empirical knowledge and tell the rest of us what is means in the reall world. You can recognize the real world from your imaginary worlds, because it has intelligent life.

What, in fact though, do you mean by "intelligence"? That's the poser."

If you move out of the real universe in order to validate its properties, then you must include intelligence in that effort.

Intelligence is the ability to discern meaning from information. Information does not carry intelligence with it. Information must be intelligently decoded in order to have meaning. Patterns must be discerned from almost random type storms of data. We chose patterns from among patterns and possible patterns. We decide which to accept as being most relevant. Please pay homage to the word 'decides'. There is no ability to decide without the necessary intelligence being already in existence. We take those patterns arriving to us at the speed of light and create images to make those patterns useful to us. It is the images that your intelligence creates for you, at the risk of being wrong for each of us, that form yours and my views of the nature of the universe.

You do not get knowledge out of books. You get symbols in the form of letters and other symbols that remind you of what you already know subconsciously. Then your subconscious mind communicates a conclusion along with an emotional feeling. The conclusion is simply the best that your subconscious can arrive at. It may be wrong it may be right. The emotional feeling gives you the indication as to how certain your subconscious mind is about its conclusion.

If you are doubtful about my reference to symbols, then I point you to the fact that we receive all of our information in the form of symbols. Every bit of it. Symbols can only point us to that place where we can find meaning. That place can only be within our own minds. Do you think there is another location in the unverse where meaning exists? That cannot be the case. We receive all of our information in the form of symbols. We can understand nothing from symbols unless we already have the means to understand.

I like a good chess game. This very logical position allows me to tie the game with the atheists, the skeptics and the doubts in my mind, in a final and unbeatable way. By denying physics an absolute hold on reality, I can be at peace with my spiritual nature. If I meet ten people who think they are psychic, but are just goofy new agers, that doesn't mean that occult phenomena doesn't exist. Physics, in a fundamental way, can't disprove it. It just means that there are a lot of people out there who are not very good at it.

People can interpret their experiences as they see fit.

I can interpret mine, believe in my beliefs, and still be 100% conscious of reality.

I've had to really battle this issue. Scientists are trained to figure out how the universe works in the absence of God, magic, etc. But they forget that they fundamentally cannot account for everything. The laws of physics do not say we have no soul and no God. The laws of physics simply say nothing about it.

Science cannot describe all of reality, and scientists should not delude those who don't know this.

I've played around with the physics enough to known the difference between "made up" technology and "plausible technology". Anybody can make up something mysterious that sounds like magic. However, I think it's useful to come up with a technology and then try to explain how everything works, down to first principles if you can. Space, time and matter should manifest in many different kinds of ways. The idea of imaginary time lines is to introduce the possibility of many different kinds of charges such that they are not interactive with each other.

Ever since you brought up the idea of multiple imaginary times lines, I've been trying to think of a mathematical way that you might incorporate the idea.

First, though, a point in imaginary time is not a continuous line, as in the positive real time that we measure. The domain is the imaginary part of the complex plane, which is 2-dimensional; so it would be more appropriate to speak of an imaginary field of time, rather than an imaginary line. You can't use the real line of negative integers alone, because that would represent a reversible trajectory of real time, not imaginary time.

A point of imaginary time represented as -a - bi is a line in the imaginary field. It would look the same as a particle history, i.e., a picture of the path of a particle event in real time. Once we've gone past the unique complex sphere origin, the singularity, we're in imaginary territory where -- as some describe it -- time is spatialized. Quantized.

The way I interpret what you appear to be saying, however, I think does not differ from the many worlds interpretation of quantum theory. That is, each branching world would also have a complex plane and an imaginary time. I can see no analytic continuation into multiple copies of the complex plane in this world, however.

When I first comprehended the idea of orthogonal imaginary time-lines, it was meant as an answer to the question: how can I have things like fast space-times (hyper-space), and other exotic existences coexisting in our space, but not allow them to interact with us, except under special conditions.

Complex space works very well at explaining lots of different physics. But if you ask me how each imaginary time is interrelated to the others, that stumps me for the moment.

One way to define a faster than light particle is that it can change direction without changing velocity. So it's not breaking any rules that I know of, for you to speak of particle histories orthogonal to our measured history. We don't know if faster than light particles exist, though theory doesn't prohibit them.

Imaginary time is something else. It's not the same as saying that we imagine a particle history in one dimension. Imaginary time is calculated on the complex plane, which is 2-dimensional.

Changing directions is nice, but it's really not the outcome I'm looking for. The world economy is a bit slow these days. I think we need to open a trade route with another inhabited world. For this reason, we're going to need to move cargo a lot faster than c to make a trade route profitable.

The second time-line would be the coexisting hyper-space. After that, hyper-drive technology gets difficult to implement. I suggest we ask for help.

A space ship a space ship a space ship before the chaos and hop in an other sphere....I am ready Jason , I am ready, I have already tested the plants and the composting, very very good results, the shield too the shield ,but for an investment, and a real project , it could be super to admit our actual limits.No? more than c , even at c it's difficult .The real centers of interests are the propulsions systems, the shield(spherical of course), and the intyrinsic autarcy, more a very good technology and matters, the resistance of matters is so important .

A space ship a space ship a space ship and hop in an other sphere , I am ready captain Wolfe ,the balance propulsion /shield is important ,

You wrote, "If you move out of the real universe in order to validate its properties, then you must include intelligence in that effort."

If that's what you think the way to determine intelligence is, then there is no intelligence in the real world, because it's all we've got. If you think intelligence comes from out of the real world, then you are posing a supernatural origin. As I said a while back. Your argument cannot escape its contradictions.

You also wrote, " ...Symbols can only point us to that place where we can find meaning. That place can only be within our own minds."

Also as I said long ago, your view is solipsistic. The symbols of science are not interpreted in _a_ mind. They are written to be objectively meaningful to all minds who understand the language. Why do you think mathematics is universally understood?

I just found this response of yours out of the thread to which it pertained.

""James, You wrote, "If you move out of the real universe in order to validate its properties, then you must include intelligence in that effort.""

"If that's what you think the way to determine intelligence is, then there is no intelligence in the real world, because it's all we've got. If you think intelligence comes from out of the real world, then you are posing a supernatural origin. As I said a while back. Your argument cannot escape its contradictions."

I have always written that intelligence is the most important property of this universe in which we live. The quote of mine was in response to your defense of extra dimensions.

""You also wrote, " ...Symbols can only point us to that place where we can find meaning. That place can only be within our own minds.""

"Also as I said long ago, your view is solipsistic. The symbols of science are not interpreted in _a_ mind. They are written to be objectively meaningful to all minds who understand the language. Why do you think mathematics is universally understood?"

Putting a name tag on me in no way reduces the significance and correctness of what I say. Here is what I say: The symbols of science are definitely and only interpreted in the mind. They have no meaning unless they are presented to a mind that already understands meaning for those symbols. Mathematics is not universally understood. Only those who have learned the meanings of the symbols understand them. Any other person would understand almost nothing from those symbols, and, any other living being located somewhere else in the universe would understand nothing about your mathematical symbolic presentations.

In principle, every mathematical statement can be expressed in natural language. Of course, it would be exceedingly tedious and impractical to do so, and there would be translation problems between nations. It is not the _symbols_ of math that are objective--(in fact, sometimes the same symbols mean different things in different contexts--the symbol pi has several applications, e.g.)--it is the statements that one constructs of the symbols that are universal. There are no such things as "English mathematics" or "Arab mathematics" or any other such.

Your claim is instructive, however. When Einstein became known, the Nazis denounced his work as "Jewish mathematics." It is only when we allow science to be interpreted in tribal terms, that one can even entertain ridiculously false statements as these. And when taken to its furthest extreme, when truth resides only in the mind of an individual (your view) there is only anti-science. Your opinion is harmless as it is here; one can take it or leave it. Suppose, however, you were a king with limitless power--you issue a decree that henceforth relativity is false because you have seen the truth, and anyone who breathes a word to the contrary shall be beheaded. Don't laugh, it has happened in analogous ways; correction: is happening.

Your opinion that only intelligence creates intelligence is another example of the cultish claims of those who think it natural for some to rule over others. After all, how could Einstein, a non-Aryan, be so smart? That's where this stuff always logicslly ends up. Meanwhile, we know that any objective explanation of intelligence soundly falsifies this claim, by theory supported with evidence.

"In principle, every mathematical statement can be expressed in natural language. ..."

What is natural language? Can you please present 2 plus 3 equals 5 in, what you refer to as, natural language?

"...it is the statements that one constructs of the symbols that are universal. ..."

Please use my above example to give an example of what you mean?

"...Your claim is instructive, however. When Einstein became known, the Nazis denounced his work as "Jewish mathematics." It is only when we allow science to be interpreted in tribal terms, that one can even entertain ridiculously false statements as these. And when taken to its furthest extreme, when truth resides only in the mind of an individual (your view) there is only anti-science. Your opinion is harmless as it is here; one can take it or leave it. Suppose, however, you were a king with limitless power--you issue a decree that henceforth relativity is false because you have seen the truth, and anyone who breathes a word to the contrary shall be beheaded. Don't laugh, it has happened in analogous ways; correction: is happening. ..."

Please do not direct your absurd diversionary tactics at me. Whatever your political or tribal or kingly views are have nothing to do with answering my question regarding 'universality of mathematics'. Let me instruct you in something that you really need to know: Mathematics is not the language of the universe. It is a tool for the mechanical interpretation of the universe.

This is an example of Tom referring to me: "...when taken to its furthest extreme, when truth resides only in the mind of an individual (your view) there is only anti-science. ..."

For anyone looking in this is what I said: The symbols of science are definitely and only interpreted in the mind. They have no meaning unless they are presented to a mind that already understands meaning for those symbols. Mathematics is not universally understood. Only those who have learned the meanings of the symbols understand them. Any other person would understand almost nothing from those symbols, and, any other living being located somewhere else in the universe would understand nothing about your mathematical symbolic presentations.

For any interested readers: What I have said (given in a little longer form here) is that all understanding comes from inside our minds. The outside world sends a storm of data that must be unscrambled, sorted for indications of orderliness, choices must be made about the relative significance of patterns, possible meanings must be compared for the best fit to the patterns, and finally, our minds must form an image of what it thinks the data is telling us. We may get it right and we may get it wrong. The image can include things that we definitely are not seeing. Sometimes, as in the case of optical illusions, even knowing in our minds that the answer is wrong, the erroneous image will persist.

In the end, our mind makes a good faith effort to make sense out of almost random data and attach helpful meaning to it. We are not assembled perfectly and we are not assembled the same. The quality of our individual abilities vary. The quality of our conclusions will vary. The kinds of conclusions we are each capable of reaching will vary. The most significant result that has universal importance is that: We reach a remarkable level of agreement in our conclusions.

Once, legions of people remarkably agreed that the Earth is flat, the sun is Apollo crashing through the heavens in his fiery chariot, and thunder is caused by angels bowling in heaven.

Maybe you think those are valid conclusions. If you don't, then give some credit to the objective standards of science, which discounts individual versions of reality in favor of careful definitions and measured outcomes rather than "understanding that comes from inside our minds."

We agree to a very high degree in our interpretations about the outside world. Therefore, we can drive much more safely down the road. We can even cooperate in scientific endeavors because we agree to a very high degree about the way the universe acts. There are now many, maybe not legions of, people who believe together in images, even scientific ones, of the universe or at least images of parts of it. Those images, in the scienfic perspective, do not have to be verified by showing all of their properties. As long as the speculative images fit mathematical analysis, then that might, for many of those people, actually more truly represent reality than that which can be seen. So we may either reached a higher level of scienfic learning or we may have floundered into a religious type view of scientific learning.

"... then give some credit to the objective standards of science, which discounts individual versions of reality in favor of careful definitions and measured outcomes rather than "understanding that comes from inside our minds."

It is of course a certainty that understanding comes from within our minds, as do definitions, and the control necessary to intelligently perform measurements and the means to interpret their outcomes.

I was just reviewing our messages. My attitude about truth is that at this point of development of theoretical physics, truth is relative. You challenged me about truth over duality. That made me think that you see your view as truth. I wouldn't be working on my own if I did not think that I was looking for truth. Our approaches are very different. You have a stronger base for...

I was just reviewing our messages. My attitude about truth is that at this point of development of theoretical physics, truth is relative. You challenged me about truth over duality. That made me think that you see your view as truth. I wouldn't be working on my own if I did not think that I was looking for truth. Our approaches are very different. You have a stronger base for your belief than do I, because you appear to accept most of theoretical physics in its current form. You have a lot of support there.

I think its too early to judge who has the truth. I think relativity theory is clearly wrong. I think many other ideas carried along by theoretical physics are also wrong. Why should anyone care what I think? My conclusions will certainly not win any respect by themselves. There is only one place for me to participate and that is at the fundamental level. That is where the changes, as I see them, must begin to be made. I think it is the only place where I have any chance of scoring points. So, I mentioned elsewhere, in another message, the idea that defining mass in f=ma as being a unique fundamental property requiring its own unique indefinable units of measurement was a guess, and, I add now that it was a wrong guess.

Why should anyone care? The equation f=ma is long established newtonian physics. It is very successful up to the point where Einstein's theory corrects it. The success of the two of them together make the original theoretical interpretation of f=ma appear to be truth. That is a very big hill for any challenger to climb.

You said: "In an earlier entry, I asked: what causes gravity? I still think the question deserves an answer."

I missed seeing this. I have looked back and could not find a previous message where you asked about the cause of gravity. But, now to my point for bringing this up now. The answer, as I see it, to the cause of gravity lies in reinterpreting mass in f=ma. Mass should not have indefinable units of measurement. It should have units of some combination of distance and time. When this change is made, then a possible answer for what causes gravity appears immediately. Again, why should anyone care about this viewpoint? If we mess around with mass then almost everything will change. Why change that which has worked so wonderfully well in practice?

I will offer a possible reason. The universal gravitational constant is equal in magnitude to a physical event. Consider two ideal, simple protons at a distance of separation equal to the radius of the hydrogen atom. I am using protons instead of neutrons because I want to avoid getting into a discussion about the nature of neutrons. Completely disregard electric effects. I am speaking only about gravitational effects.

An observer on one of the protons believes himself to be stationary. He sees the other proton approaching his proton due to the force of gravity. I will refer to this as the local acceleration of gravity. Now the point: The magnitude of the fundamental gravitational constant is equal in magnitude to the square of the local acceleration due to gravity of one proton toward the observer's proton multiplied by the square of the distance between them at the instant that that distance is equal to the radius of the hydrogen atom.

I have to refer only to the magnitudes because, the units do not match. Now I refer anyone interested back to my point regarding f=ma. If the units of mass are corrected back at the beginning of theory, then the units in the above conclusion match and I do not have to refer only to their magnitudes.

"My attitude about truth is that at this point of development of theoretical physics, truth is relative. You challenged me about truth over duality. That made me think that you see your view as truth."

Symmetries and dualities are everywhere, in physics, nature and human relationships. When two groups are both after the Truth, there will inevitably be places where they disagree. These disagreements will fuel passionate debate. If debate can occur without people getting killed or relationships getting destroyed, then real discovery is possible. Believe me, I thrive on the idea of being able to point out something to the physics community that they have overlooked. It's my way of contributing and helping.

Do I know the truth? I am very good counsel. I can lead you to discoveries that you never thought of. But I am not the final word on most issues. I personally think that quantum mechanics and Relativity are correct; however, they can be interpreted in more useful ways. For example, I think that quantum mechanics tells us that our ability to probe the quantum universe is limited to h-bar. But what if we had access to another set of charges/fields/imaginary time-line with a speed of light c'>>c and an h-bar'

I am taking this off that hugely nested set of posts above. Quantum information is a measure over quantum states or the density matrix. This is different from what I think most people here are conflating with quantum information and for that matter information. Physical information does not have to impart any particular meaning or message per se. A random sequence of bits serves to define information with an entropy.

Thanks for separating this out. Yes, that's the distinction I was trying to get across.

Because I deal with complex systems, I often get told that self organization is impossible because there has to be some agent directing traffic, so to speak--giving instructions which one conflates with "information" or "intelligence." We know this isn't true, of course. That condition is sufficient, though not necessary.

"This is different from what I think most people here are conflating with quantum information and for that matter information. Physical information does not have to impart any particular meaning or message per se."

You appear to be saying: It is possible to impart meaning from some information and not possible from other information. Would you please explain the 'impart' part of this statement?

Thank you for that clarification. It appears that you are saying that data is information. For example, changes of distance with respect time, without further clarification, would be information. Is this accurate?

It just hit me like a freight train. My God, hyper-drive physics is hard. Our space-time is a crystal lattice that is highly sensitive to twenty or so constants. If the constants change, then the laws of physics change. But only certain constants will produce a stable crystal. I don't know how the constants work, but the constants are responsible for our space-time. If the constants were to change in the right way, then the space where this event occurs will experience a re-crystallization. Since the rest of the universe is already one time of crystal, it will push back on the new-crystallization. If it did not, then recrystallization would travel outwards as a spherical wave-front.

But there are still separate and orthogonal time-lines. Hyper-drive physics comes down to this. Imagine that we have a beach ball whose plastic walls will force/maintain the space-time crystallization of everything inside of it. But in order to travel faster than light, I have to translate the beach ball from time line A (our universe) to time-line B. When I do this, I translate the plastic walls of the beach ball. Those plastic walls sustain the space-time crystal inside of them. I put my spaceship/cargo/crew etc. inside. When translation occurs into hyper-space, the beachball now exists in hyper-space, but it is maintaining the space-time crystal inside of it; along with everything in it.

That is how hyper-drive physics is accomplished. I have no earthly idea how physics constants are changed.

General Relativity states that two particle cannot pass each other, locally, any faster than the speed of light. Yet, there are galaxies that are far away from each other that are measured to have a relative velocity some multiple of the speed of light.

Bottom line - can information be transmitted faster than light or not? For long distance observations, is the speed of light just an assumption?

While working on the hyper-drive, I came up with a possible reason why gravity is necessary. The idea came from discussions about quaternions, etc.

Let's begin with a thought experiment. You're driving down a dark lonely road, when all of the sudden, you see bright lights: it's an alien spaceship. However, these are incompetent aliens who can't build a proper hyper-drive. Anyway, as luck would have it, they fly over you and beam you and your vehicle aboard. They tell you they are going to take you back to their planet for a meet and greet. Huh? As their spaceship jumps into hyper-space, something terrible (or wonderful) happens. The spaceship jumped to hyper-space and left. But they forgot you and your car, which fell about fifty feet and hit hard enough to wreck your car. No the insurance company won't believe you. But what happened? How come you got left behind, accidentally?

This universe, and the coexisting hyper-space(s) are separated by different imaginary time-lines; that's why we don't notice them. But what about the atoms that make up your body and your car? Each little quantum particle has its own teeny weeny gravitational connection to this imaginary time-line, this physical universe. That is what holds us to this universe. The gravitational force that keeps everything from floating away is a secondary benefit. Space-time has a reel-to-reel appearance that is mistaken for time travel. It is the flow of gravity through everything.

Why did you go crashing down to the lonely dark road below when the spaceship transitioned to hyper-space? The aliens forgot to pass the reel-to-reel gravity tape of your particles through their spaceship. If they had done that, you would have become particle of their space-ship. There spaceship still had charges on our imaginary time-line. They kept you from falling while they were in our time-line. When they transitioned to hyper-space, everything else on the spaceship transitioned to hyper-space; except you and your car. Oops!

Gravity is what makes the quantum particles of our universe remain a part of our universe. Gravity extends from the edge of the universe all the way down to each and every fermion and boson.

Is it really a Quaternion, or are Florin and Grgin correct about Quantions? Of course, 4-D requires a complex twisted pair of Quantions. I still think that hyperspace is an Octonion, Gravity originates in the Octonion, and we need Associahedra and/or Permutahedra to make sense out of some of the weird Octonion algebra. You need a Black Hole and one of Subir Sachdev's Babel Fish to get into Hyperspace, but would you survive there very long if Gravitational couplings are of order unity rather than 10^(-40)?

If I sound 'crazy', its because I've been at work for 14 hours straight, and we did a month's worth of business since 3 am this morning.

The space-ship with incompetent aliens thought experiment paid off. Here is why. Let's say that some kind of E8 crystal is a fair guess as to the nature of the universe; I like Lawrence Pentachorons; however, I would add causality as a starting condition. Using a tesselation model with a causality requirement allows us to generate fermions at the vertices, and bosons as the struts. This gives us particles and forces. It also gives us a frame that can be dragged (frame dragging). Since the speed of light is tied into everything, I expect light to travel along the crystal, along its vertices and struts, in some kind of way that produces motion and activity, what we observe.

Whatever kind of pentachoron E8 space-time crystal that space-time acts like, why are we so surprised when a fermion or a boson at a vertex or strut puts a tiny amount of stress on the lattice? Why would we be surprised at all? The result is called gravity. Admittedly, it takes a significant amount of mass/energy before we start to notice a gravity field.

In the case of a spaceship jumping to hyper-space; hyperspace is on another crystal. If you forgot to move your abductees to the hyperspace crystal, they get left behind, as in my example.

When did it become a Lawrence Pentachoron? Did I oversleep and miss something? If you recall, I am the crazy one who has been talking about n-simplices, pentality symmetries, pentagonal Petrie polygons, and the origin of the golden ratio quite consistently. I may not have used the word pentachoron very often, but that is exactly what I've been talking about.

OK - So you want to talk in terms of stresses and strains. It works like this...

Imagine a soccer ball (buckyball/fullerene) that surrounds the core of a Black Hole. Imaginary Time is the radius of this soccer ball, and Imaginary Time (in conjunction with soccer ball stresses and strains - the fullerene is a very strong shape) prevents the Black Hole core from collapsing into a true mathematical singularity. The surface of the soccer ball has a pattern of hexagons (traditionally white) and pentagons (traditionally black). These pentagons represent Petrie pentagons/pentachorons, and these hexagons represent Petrie hexagons/hexaterons. Each different pentagon represents another Spacetime Universe within the multiverse, and each different hexagon represents another Hyperspace Universe within the multiverse.

In my lattice models, the fermions are vertices, and the bosons are struts (aka the basis/displacement vectors that convert one vertex/fermion into another), but we should not forget Supersymmetry. I think that Supersymmetry must be true, but I doubt the possibility of the dominant paradigm of Weak-Scale Supersymmetry. I have an alternate idea that is too wild and original to mention on this site. The LHC should soon confirm or deny Weak-Scale Supersymmetry. Its supporters cannot keep pushing Supersymmmetry farther from the W/Z masses and still call it 'Weak-Scale' physics. A Supersymmetric model must also contain bosonic vertices and fermionic struts. This goes back to statements made by Lubos and Tom that you cannot build a TOE out of strictly bosonic basis vectors (struts) like Lisi's E8 and my E12 - you need a Supersymmetric E8 x E8* or E12 x E12*.

My ideas are converging with Lawrence's. I have finally backed off from 28 dimensions to 27 (E-Infinity needs to stop talking about 26 + fractal dimensions - that idea is just plain wrong), and I realize that Lawrence has the Babel fish. Now all he needs is a Black Hole...

That was a type, sorry about that. Pentachorons were part of the concept, but the use of causality generates 4.02... dimensions of space-time. That's the crystal I want to use; I can't think of the name right now. It's a model and it works just fine locally. The speed of light is c on this crystal, etc. When frame dragging occurs, or these black holes that spit out material that appears to be travelling FTL, one can say that the limits of the crystal model have been reached. Space-time can be described by tesselation of hyper-spheres, but it is just a model. Space-time itself is not like quartz crystal which will shatter if you apply stresses to it. Space-time, as a crystal lattice, doesn't shatter. It transmits those stresses as gravity waves. Quartz crystals don't Big Bang when compressed; tesselated space-time does.

I've been thinking about the soccer ball approach; it allows you to fit multiple space-times on one crystal. I believe that such a crystal has only one imaginary time dimension because I believe that each independent crystal has its own imaginary time-line. The reason I believe this is because the speed of light has to be the same throughout the crystal; so a tesselated soccer ball would have the same speed of light. This could serve a useful purpose if you just wanted more space to put stuff.

For faster space-times, you need a separate crystal. Coinciding crystals would be the same as orthogonal imaginary timelines. With the proper use of tachyons, you can get imaginary masses from each crystal to connect. This allows you to interact with the other space-time. This also allows conjugates of wave functions to connect with non conjugate wave functions (Psi*_space-time)(Psi_hyperspace).

Stresses on the crystal will translate into gravity forces. I have to disagree with you on why black holes don't collapse into singularities. The event horizon is just the velocity at which light can't escape. Maybe I'm confusing black hole core with event horizon.

As for weak scale supersymmetry, I confess I don't understand enough about it to comment.

Like I said, "Lawrence Pentachoron" was a typo. I like the idea of tesselating hyper-spheres, as a model, but the idea I was going for is causal dynamic triangulation.

In my opinion, these are just helpful models that describe our universe. But I think that the real building blocks of the universe are far beyond our ability to model mathematically. The best we can do is find more useful models to work with.

To that end, it is useful to describe space-time as a crystal with fermion vertices and bosonic struts. I suspect that the speed of light somehow flows through the lattice, making it the dynamic universe that we see. Since this light flows through vertices and struts, alike, it helps to explain why the speed of light is so fundamentally integrated into QM and GR alike.

It just made sense to think of bosons and fermions as things that create strain in the lattice. The result of large amounts of strain would be characterized as gravity. It's an intuitive argument, but I am think it makes reasonable sense.

These n-simplices are very similar to Causal Dynamical Triangulation, and may be a multi-dimensional generalization of CDT.

The struts and vertices are similar to Lisi's application of the 8-dimensional Gosset lattice, although one issue I have with Lisi's model is that his struts are exclusively bosons, and his vertices are primarily (but not exclusively) fermions. It lacks an overall Supersymmetric symmetry. Furthermore, the Gosset lattice vertices have a definite five-fold "pentality" symmetry. Lisi's model lacks a clear realization of this symmetry - most of his "pentality" symmetries include four fermions and one boson - a configuration that also lacks an overall supersymmetric symmetry.

And earlier, I forgot to mention Associahedra and Permutahedra. I think these concepts work together with the soccer ball/fullerene geometry of the M2-brane to make sense out of the bizarre algebraic properties of Octonions. Whether we like it or not, an E8 - such as Lisi's - could/should carry Octonion properties.

As I said earlier, I have wild ideas about the relationships between bosons, fermions, and Supersymmetry. I have shared these ideas with Lawrence. I hope he sees how to build on the concept. But your basic idea of fermions as vertices and bosons as struts is a clarification of my "Symplectic Tiling..." (in CS&F) and "A Case Study..." (topic 520) papers that definitely has merit IMHO.

Earlier I said "The struts and vertices are similar to Lisi's application of the 8-dimensional Gosset lattice, although one issue I have with Lisi's model is that his struts are exclusively bosons, and his vertices are primarily (but not exclusively) fermions. It lacks an overall Supersymmetric symmetry. Furthermore, the Gosset lattice vertices have a definite five-fold "pentality" symmetry. Lisi's model lacks a clear realization of this symmetry - most of his "pentality" symmetries include four fermions and one boson - a configuration that also lacks an overall supersymmetric symmetry."

I would like to correct that by saying "one issue I have with Lisi's model is that his basis vectors are exclusively bosons, his struts are primarily (but not exclusively) bosons, and his vertices are primarily (but not exclusively) fermions."

It would take a minimum of a 16-dimensional E8 x E8* to make Lisi's theory consistent with Supersymmetry. Considering that Lisi doesn't even believe in this many dimensions (unless he has changed his mind recently), he will never find the TOE, IMHO. However, he has initiated ideas that others may be able to build upon.

I have been working with a thought experiment. For the moment, I am calling it Vacuum Crystallization. Vacuum Crystallization is the advanced technology of recreating, within a very small controlled space, about the size of a basket ball, another set of laws of physics. The surface of the "basket ball" changes some of the 20 or so constants of the standard model. Most combinations are not stable. The standard model combination is very stable. If a more stable combination were found, that particular space-time would crystallize inside of the "basket ball". As it tried to expand to the rest of the universe, the rest of the universe would push it back; the logic works like this: 50 million cavemen can still beat down a platoon of US Army Rangers -- sheer numbers. But the "basket ball" is a protected space that allows you to create any kind of space-time crystal that you want to create. Whether or not it is stable enough to fill the whole "basket ball" is beyond my knowledge of how to calculate.

In principle we could test Lisi's E8 space or your soccer ball space inside of this Vacuum Crystallization chamber.

This isn't an "either or" kind of scenario that I'm talking about. I think that BOTH the 8-D Gosset lattice E8 AND the 2-D graphene/ fullerene lattice G2 are relevant. I guess the question is "Which lattice sets which length parameter?"

Which lattice sets which length parameter? Mmm... Energy should translate between lattices 1:1. If you set the speed of light and the Planck constant, then the dimensions set themselves from those values.

There are 19 unitless physical constants:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensionless_physical_constant

It should be possible to reconstruct the relative relationships between these constants, and then relate those to whichever lattices are being considered.

The Vacuum Crystallization Chamber is s thought experiment that lets you configure the type of space-time that you want, add energy, and then set it loose. You can play God or play "advanced alien"; your ability to imagine is the only restriction. However, the experiment is meant to help figure out why some geometries work better than others. You mentioned super symmetry. Why would super-symmetry make any difference?

When I do the thought experiment, I'm kind of assuming a spherical symmetry that is reinforced by the spherical Vacuum Crystallization Chamber. But what is it that bounces off the walls of the chamber? What is the lattice actually made out of? We know that they can "Big Bang" and get larger. Is it some mysterious wave function?

CDT provides one of the observables; that is, time travel doesn't occur or else the lottery would be under investigation all the time. Also, the speed of light as an absolute ties into particle mass, momentum, and the spread of information content.

The way gravity works with respect to the tessellated lattice makes sense to me, but you be the judge. Light is flowing through the struts and vertices. If there is no fermion or boson there, then the light flows along the shortest path, along the struts/vertices. But if there are fermions/bosons, then the light has to take a detour through the particle and/or through the vibrating strut. A strut with an energized boson is equivalent to a shorter strut; that shorter strut creates a tension on the lattice. The result is a gravitational attraction.

A fermion at the vertex delays the light passing through it, causing the equivalent of shorter struts around it. Whatever the light flowing along the crystal is doing, the presence of fermions and bosons delays it, resulting in a gravitational attraction.

This is about as succinctly as I can describe a hyper-drive propulsion system.

Abstract:

In order to achieve the result of interstellar travel on a reasonable time scale using an apparent faster-than-light propulsion system, the following description of necessary technologies must first be understood. We begin with two models of the physical universe: (1) imaginary-time and (2) a tessellated lattice of Causal Dynamical Triangulation adherent pentachorons called the CDT Lattice. An artificial CDT lattice of space-time is to be generated by the Vacuum Lattice Chamber. The Vacuum Lattice Chamber allows the 19 physics constants to be configured in such a way as to generate, as a standing wave, the CDT lattice. The Vacuum Lattice Chamber itself is designed to transition between the two imaginary time lines of this space-time, and the coexisting faster space-time (hyper-space). The Vacuum Lattice Chamber is a time-line shifting projection from the hyper-space constructed propulsion engines. These propulsion engines obey relativity relative to the faster speed of light, c' >> c.

Opposie particles X and Y CANNOT be in the SAME STATE at the SAME TIME in the SAME PLACE.

EXPEPTION PRIOR TO THE BIG BANG.

Where the maths can be contradictory....................

Four states of matter in one means potential energy is stored from a previous incarnation of our universe and released all at once in a phase change where one state becomes four and one force becomes four forces.

Potential energy becomes kinetic that is the mechanism of the big bang.

This Is JEFFREYS SIMPLE MECHANISM FOR EVERYTHING" KEEP IT SIMPLE & STUPID."

You can calculate the energy that wold have to be stored to make the big bang happen....